> Not sure if smartphones will last 10 years. ... They are just not made for 10 years usage.
I'm fairly certain that some phone models out there are probably better in this regard, especially if you can swap out the battery, the components are of decent quality and they're built in a rugged way. Also, somehow the idea of repairing your phone has gone out of the window, since you can just buy a new one.
> Your laptop may be good, but it will probably only support some ancient insecure slow WiFi profiles.
For many, slow Wi-Fi is acceptable. Same with a dated and slow CPU/RAM, which many will still consider better than their devices becoming e-waste. If the OS wasn't so locked down, many would enjoy having a stand-in for a Raspberry Pi for all I care, since the small form factor of a phone would lend itself nicely to DIY hacking, especially because of included camera and networking. Even if the hardware is lacking, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't or couldn't support the software for longer amounts of time.
Your point about the hardware itself and what it supports becoming insecure is a good one, but there's no guarantee that the amount of time for something like that to happen would be much shorter than any improved OS EOL period. Of course, if it's some non-critical functionality that's insecure, it might as well be turned off in software, like older versions of TLS in web servers.
> Distributions start to drop old hardware. And there are always new CPU and other chip security bugs discovered, how do you get fixes for that into your system?
We could cross that bridge when we actually get to it, and try to figure out the things that are easier to do first and foremost: notably software support. If something like Ubuntu LTS has an EOL of 5 years and AlmaLinux has security updates for 10, I don't see why Android versions should be any different, unless governed by a profit oriented corporation.
Aside from that, it's surprising that 3G can just be tossed away like that on a national level, since the amounts of e-waste this would generate is kind of staggering, even more odd is the fact that in many places 2G is still in operation. I guess at least that is a bit of a silver lining, if the claims were to be true (citation is needed, but it sounds like a sane argument): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G#Decline_and_decommissions
> Technology that depends on 3G for usage will soon become inoperable in many places. For example, the European Union plans to ensure that member countries maintain 2G networks as a fallback[citation needed], so 3G devices that are backwards compatible with 2G frequencies can continue to be used.
I'm fairly certain that some phone models out there are probably better in this regard, especially if you can swap out the battery, the components are of decent quality and they're built in a rugged way. Also, somehow the idea of repairing your phone has gone out of the window, since you can just buy a new one.
> Your laptop may be good, but it will probably only support some ancient insecure slow WiFi profiles.
For many, slow Wi-Fi is acceptable. Same with a dated and slow CPU/RAM, which many will still consider better than their devices becoming e-waste. If the OS wasn't so locked down, many would enjoy having a stand-in for a Raspberry Pi for all I care, since the small form factor of a phone would lend itself nicely to DIY hacking, especially because of included camera and networking. Even if the hardware is lacking, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't or couldn't support the software for longer amounts of time.
Your point about the hardware itself and what it supports becoming insecure is a good one, but there's no guarantee that the amount of time for something like that to happen would be much shorter than any improved OS EOL period. Of course, if it's some non-critical functionality that's insecure, it might as well be turned off in software, like older versions of TLS in web servers.
> Distributions start to drop old hardware. And there are always new CPU and other chip security bugs discovered, how do you get fixes for that into your system?
We could cross that bridge when we actually get to it, and try to figure out the things that are easier to do first and foremost: notably software support. If something like Ubuntu LTS has an EOL of 5 years and AlmaLinux has security updates for 10, I don't see why Android versions should be any different, unless governed by a profit oriented corporation.
Aside from that, it's surprising that 3G can just be tossed away like that on a national level, since the amounts of e-waste this would generate is kind of staggering, even more odd is the fact that in many places 2G is still in operation. I guess at least that is a bit of a silver lining, if the claims were to be true (citation is needed, but it sounds like a sane argument): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G#Decline_and_decommissions
> Technology that depends on 3G for usage will soon become inoperable in many places. For example, the European Union plans to ensure that member countries maintain 2G networks as a fallback[citation needed], so 3G devices that are backwards compatible with 2G frequencies can continue to be used.