https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Western+Digital+My+Book+Live...
I don't know if they're still using powerpc on more modern iterations of these devices ...
...just kidding, they'll just keep shipping progressively more ancient and insecure versions of Debian.
You are demanding that people that no longer have an interest in something, work for free, for your benefit, while you contribute nothing.
All I read now is, how dare I to raise the issue. Who am I anyway to raise such an issue, without even being willing to contribute anymore. And that's just plain stupid. As an IT-guy I just begin to hate anything that smells like a "software-community", because not just the software stinks, but also the arguments about it.
No. It is not your fault that maintainers eventually decide to move on. It is nobody's fault. In fact, many maintainers do work in spite of the fact nobody appreciates it. In some cases, it's even a good or great thing to move on -- maintenance is time consuming and there are many other valuable things to do in life, as opposed to writing software, or even simply working on software you think is more important.
But it is your fault for making shitty posts like a child on the internet, in attempts to allude that Debian, somehow, is just fucking around with you personally or something -- or that they do not have any rhyme or reason to their decisions to do things like this. Your post might as well have read "why not just get rid of ARM too lulzzzzz amirite guise?!?!?? debian is so dum", like a 4chan pepe meme regurgitator -- and it would have had the same amount of content. It's simply extremely ungrateful to people who have put in 10 years of work on the PPC port already, probably much of it their spare time, to act this way.
Nobody is maintaining the port anymore. That's unfortunate if you depended on it. I've been burned by lack of maintenance too. But, here -- it is not a conspiracy against the hardware or an affront to you individually. It's just the reality of the fact nobody wants to support it anymore, and the involved people are moving on. You need to accept that. There's no blame on anyone. It's simply the way it is.
The reason you're getting responses that are effectively just brushing you aside, FWIW, is because many people here are involved with or have maintained FOSS to a large degree, software that is diverse, that has been used by many people, and in many contexts. That includes me. Unfortunately, a large part of that territory involves dealing with ungrateful users like yourself, who not only do not understand how such projects tend to function or operate -- but also who interpret choices they dislike as personal attacks, and furthermore contribute nothing of value on their own, or even allege that the motivations behind some decisions are unsound (while, again, having no insight or ability to contribute meaningfully). And I don't mean code. Most users rarely even, if ever, say "thanks". I don't write free code to get thanks, I don't assume it. I do try to assume that when I write code, I won't be treated like shit from ungrateful nobodies.
And, as unfortunate as it is, and however much it pains me to say this directly to you -- experience is telling me that, right now frankly, you are just another ungrateful, whiny user who is unlikely to contribute anything of value or substance. And despite the potential possibility that you could contribute things of value, after extensive work -- it's really not in my interests to "work towards" accepting attitudes like yours. There are 10,000 people who are at least 10x as qualified you while being nowhere near as annoying. I can wait for those people. Hell, I'd rather wait for people who are 1/4th as skilled as you and less annoying. At least I'd have the opportunity to mentor or help someone who isn't going to accuse me of bad faith every other decision.
Putting up with people like you does not make me any more excited to write or maintain my software, it makes me less excited. This isn't a happy thing to say. But it is the world we live in, and I have better things to do than appease users who act like brats.
You'll get less agitated responses if you drop the malicious implicit assumption that Debian or whatever is doing this to spite you, or that people are responding negatively to you are just doing so to troll you because "they can't understand your side".
As an ungrateful annoyance, I must disagree. I'll tell all 6 people I know to never use Debian again, despite the fact 4 of them don't know what it is. I'll stand up to anyone who dares suggest I'm lazy or ungrateful, but I'll do that only by not engaging them until the very last moment. Solidarity will triumph.
Also, my dad works at Nintendo and I'm important, and I'm going to get him to ban you from Online. You'll rue the day you stopped considering all my unstated desires and needs at all times, my friend.
FOSS is truly a thankless vocation.
Now, with the above said, I also like it when people find any use of my software and I feel well damn responsible for anything I contribute. I take the blame if anything goes wrong and if I'm not able to keep up with bug reports. But somehow the FOSS-community got the idea that it's okay to just abandon a project, because no one wants to participate anymore. Once they've established a certain circle of users it's their goddamn responsibility to keep it running! It's a moral choice here, not a rational! It doesn't matter whether they have time for it or don't! You do not abandon your child when it becomes annoying and a burden.
A) abuse and abandonment of a child by their caregivers, a grave injustice in our modern society, and
B) someone didn't keep writing software for me, for free, in their own spare time -- even when when I decided to cry on the internet about it publicly
My friends: the choice before you is obvious.