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what made me tweaked enough to post? realising that Google had installed a Bill Gates* in my head:

I'm upgrading a tablet released in 2014 from Android 5 (released in 2014) to Android 7 (released in 2017), and caught myself thinking of this as upgrading an "old" device to "new" software

i.e. the poisonous psychology that's sending us hurtling towards resource wars, climate destruction, and nonexistent computer privacy or security.

*of the infamous "Gates' Law Of Software" http://catb.org/jargon/html/G/Gatess-Law.html

#Google and #Samsung decided they could get away with stopping official updates for this tablet since 2015, so they did, and people are still buying their devices so I guess it worked

By comparison, and obviously #Apple are also gigantic fucking scumbags in other areas, the iPhone 6 released the same year got its last software update 3 months ago, in November 2021.

What does this "fuck it" attitude to #Android updates do?

#1 - Kills security and privacy. Next time someone is doing free PR for Google, crowing about how great Project Zero is, maybe ask how all that work stacks up against the millions and millions of internet-connected devices that Google has left out of security updates for the last *half decade* through their agreement with Samsung and other partners.

#2 - Makes absolutely fine hardware obsolete, planet-destroyingly early (but yay profits for Google and Samsung when people keep needlessly re-buying the same shit again). Extra shout-out to lazy capitalist app developers for playing their part here, taking advantage of Google's nonexistent backwards compatibility policy for the Play Store by dropping support for Android versions whenever the fuck they feel like – Rocket.chat, First Direct bank, looking at you!

so, the corporations have failed us on #Android updates and it's up to the community to keep our hardware working for any kind of reasonable time. YAY OPEN SOURCE!!!111

Except... #Google and other Android-pushers have made working with the OS a totally hellish experience, and I wonder what tiny percentage of Android users will ever be able to install a custom OS image.

Why's it so awful? (Turning into a megathread here )

@handle
While very concerned about Googles dominant position in info tech & their massive collection of user data, Im not sure they have conspired to make Android devices stop getting updates

Dont think anything Google does stops Samsung updating their devices

Google have made efforts like Project Treble, Project Mainline & GKI to make it easier for devices to get updates. Also Android One to get more phones with longer updates

Latest Pixels get 5 years of updates and Google are far…