I've recently seen a trend in tech communities on lemmy where people have developed this mentality that computer hardware is as disposable as a compostable cup, and that after 10-15 years you should just chuck it in the bin and get something new. If someone asks for tech support, they'll just be told to buy new hardware. If someone is saddened their hardware is no longer supported by software they are just entitled, need to pull up their bootstraps, and "only" spend $100 to get something used that will also not be supported in 5 years. It doesn't matter if there is actual information out there that'll help them either. If the hardware is old, people will unanimously decide that nothing can be done.
I've seen this even in linux communities, what happened to people giving a damn about e-waste? Why is the solution always to just throw money at the problem? It's infuriating. I've half a mind to just block every tech/software community other than the ones on hexbear at this point.
Hardware just gets better really quickly, GPU's have been roughly doubling in power every two generations. Why wouldn't developers take advantage of that to make games that look amazing?
Honestly though, it's mostly just a gaming problem. I have, among other computers, a 16 year old laptop that does perfectly fine for everything that isn't running modern videogames (and even then I can still run older titles). Sure, 4GB RAM means I sometimes have to do things one at a time, but old hardware works surprisingly well. x86_64 came out 22 years ago, so if anything it's surprising that so much is only dropping 32 bit support now.
Phones, on the other hand, are a much more abysmal landscape than computers. A lot of Androids will only get like 3 years of updates, and even the longer supported phones like iPhones and Google Pixels will get a mere 6-8 years of updates.
For phones, I think everybody should try to buy phones that get community support. I used to have a Galaxy S2 that would always get the newest version of Android because someone on XDA just made it happen. I had a OnePlus 6T for the longest time and the charging port went out before the community support was over. Shit, I'm sure there are still people developing for the 6T
Literally me. I only switched to a Pixel (w/ GrapheneOS) once DivestOS (imo the best OP6T ROM) shut down.
I'm impressed your laptop is in such great shape. I had a decently high end Dell in 2010 that by 2018 could barely browse the web, overheated without a fan underneath, and had a battery that wouldn't hold a percentage of charge.
Tbh it was pretty high end back in it's day, and it's had it's battery replaced.