I don’t know about this take, software updates when it comes to consumer products have never been mandatory, only perceived as mandatory in order to gain some new feature. As a developer, there are times we have to compromise old logic in order to add new logic. In other areas of life we call those changes progress.
But there's no distinction between a security patch and a feature update. And it's never just an update to only get new features. It's to get bug fixes and better compatibility with new programs (I'm thinking of libraries and dependencies). And there's the case of Windows and Chrome OS, where software updates cannot be opted out of by official means.
When I think of planned obsolescence and sorta-unintentional performance regressions on desktop operating systems, I'm instantly brought to YouTube's Polymer website and UWP. Two complicated things but they largely only benefit the developers of the software and have not actually delivered any features. Google is a huge part of the desktop world and they're not so "external" as pabs3 says and to me it's just part of the software right to repair movement.
I was intent on keeping this iPhone on iOS 14 until Apple released a statement that they had buried their plans to introduce what I see as spyware or the precursor to spyware.
Now 14 suddenly isn't an option anymore. Exploits are still found and the only way to patch them seems to be to go to iOS 15.
Luckily the latest Nokia clamshell phones have good mobile broadband support and also support Telegram and Signal it seems. With the price difference between a brand new iPhone and a brand new Nokia clamshell I can also buy a really good camera and then I think I got it sorted mostly.
Just off the top of my head, OS updates are mandatory if you do any mobile banking.
Banking apps have mechanisms to check if there's an update available and not give access unless you install it. You then can't install the app update unless the OS is sufficiently new.
