I’m going to reply to a few sibling comments at once:

Yes, they could upstream drivers, but they won’t. It’s not in their best interest. I’m taking about what could be done in spite of this.

Given that they won’t upstream drivers, if the blobs they release keep working for the reasonable life of your device, your phone can get other software updates, including major OS updates. I don’t expect or need the camera or radio driver to change across various android versions. The hardware is the same!

And if you want a newer phone, you’re free to buy one! It’s just sad that you can’t safely use older devices just because the blobs break compatibility with OS security and feature updates. This need not be the case.