Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bambax | Hacker News Reader

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But why? Why is it acceptable to consider OSes 15 years old ancient, when that logic never applied to almost any tool in the history of mankind, and still doesn't apply to any other category except software?

In my home all the machines are 20+ years old and work perfectly fine (oven, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, irons...) not to mention things that don't need electricity, which are 30 or sometimes more than 80 years old (furniture but also cookware, etc.)

A bike that's 20 years old feels ok and modern; a bike starts to really look ancient at maybe 50 years old? We can still drive cars made in the 80s and 90s (and they're often better than newer ones).

Windows 7 works fine, why should it go to waste, and the machine it run on, and why should people be forced to upgrade and change or abandon all the little customisations they have set up that makes their lives easier? Don't we have better things to do with our time than relearn a new way to do the exact same thing?

I understand the motivation of vendors to try and sell new things; what I don't get is why we put up with it.

No-one is forcing you to stop using Windows 7 if you don't want to. It's just no longer suitable for this specific use case(running the latest steam client).

If you apply the same test to other things you mentioned then often they are the same. They will continue doing the same job if you want them to, but they won't meet new requirements placed upon them, and the only realistic option is complete replacement.

For instance, cars over 20 years old are no longer allowed in central London because they lack emissions filters for particulates which are hazardous to health in high concentrations. These cars are considered ancient and it's acceptable to ban them from one of the most important cities in the world. They're not better, and in this specific case you literally can't still drive it(if you live London).

My 20 year old DVD player cannot play BluRay discs. It's considered ancient, and it was acceptable to create a new incompatible standard. If I want to play the latest discs I'll have to buy a new one.

My dwelling has no gas supply. I have an induction cooker, which heats far faster than either gas or thermal electric whilst also avoiding the dangers of flame and uncovered heating elements. 80 year old pans would not work with it. They're ancient.

I wasn't dealing with Bluetooth devices 80 years ago.

For a ton of people the demands of what they're expecting from their software change pretty radically in 15 years.

These days I'm needing more modern hardware support than what Windows 7 offers. I'm managing Bluetooth devices and swapping audio devices much more often. I'm far more connected than 15 years ago. The security threat landscape is pretty different today than 15 years ago. I'm using much larger screens (and vastly different aspect ratios) than 15 years ago and prefer to use the built-in snap layouts rather than just the basic left/right/center in 7. Dozens of more things that just end up making the experience of going back to 7 pretty painful in the end.

The environment in which an OS runs becomes increasingly adversarial with time.

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