If people gets used to giving their old devices a second life by lending their old devices to a fellow geek, to install this "weird app" that allows them to keep using it, that could become huge exposure for FLOSS operating systems.
As long as Linux, postmarketOS or LineageOS are the "weird apps" geeks install for their friends' devices, I highly doubt they'll ever gain any real exposure outside of tech circles.
I can get a PC from 10 years ago and install Windows 10 and it'll most likely run absolutely fine - really rather well in fact. On the other hand, many people would probably be quite frustrated if they had to use a phone that's even three or four years old.
It amazes me how people react even when I tell them I'm still using an iPhone 6 Plus that I bought in 2015.
Marketers did a great job convincing people that they need to renew their phones every two years (or less)
Do while the free phone went away (for this in the cell phone market, did plans get any cheaper?) the purchase styles didn't.
Just like my bluetooth headphones. I had to re-solder a weak connection twice, but after adding some hot glue to keep it in place the second time, it hasn't broken anymore. The battery life is still better than advertised, and I've been using it daily for 3-4 years.
"Throwaway" is a culture, contributing to the problem just as much as (or maybe even more than?) planned obsolesce.
4.5 years is pretty good in this market - last I checked you were lucky to get 2 years of software updates from most android vendors. According to usage stats about half of all android phones are stuck on an operating system from 2014 or earlier[1]. I don't want to think about the security consequences of most android phones never having security updates installed.
4.5 years still is nothing on postmarketOS's 10 year target. Bravo.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/support/app-store/
[2] https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
Just because phones run an old Android version, doesn't mean no patches get backported. For example, the official firmware for FP2 runs Android 6 with a patchlevel of (last time I checked) Dec 5.
Furthermore, other "postmarket OSes" such as LOS already extend life. The problem with these is firmware updates for chips, and hardware bugs.
It’s a bit of a separate problem but I’ve seen an awful lot of ignored software update notifications on the phones of relatives over the Christmas break. Is there data on the install rate of security hotfixes?
lots of time wasted without any big increase in adoption.
companies making the devices standards (apple, google, samsung) all make lots of money from ads, and subscription services. both of those things get huge advantage if you can lock in your customer.
we are still living the main frame age on mobiles. even if you can install your os on old and new devices, it doesn't matter, because they can cut you out of whatsapp or youtube (see Amazon firephone)
the os is irrelevant to adoption. but it must have the or dictate killer apps. when foss solve IM, social and ugc video streaming, then the personal computer era will begin on mobiles.
I think that’s only true for one of the companies in your list.
samsung also tried it all. and they make a killing selling pre-installed bloatware in PCs as phones. which is pretty much advertising.
Yet if people get to use the platform anyway as a secondary device, this could get these tools a significant steady user base that might grow to critical mass if/when a security/privacy scandal happens, disparaging the stablished players.
and even then, when the best protocol showed up, google made a point to associate it with gtalk and kill both.
Regarding the walled-garden services like YouTube or WhatsApp: From a privacy and security point of view it would be better to avoid these altogether and switch to open source and decentralized services like Matrix[1] instead (for instant messaging/VoIP).
I know, for most people it is not feasible to convert all your friends to such services, but even in that situation it is possible to use open implementations that work on Linux. Check out this list [2] ("Apps that only work with proprietary services" table at the bottom).
Going further, when there's enough interest by one or more individuals to package anbox[3] for postmarketOS, it is possible in theory to run regular Android apps (NewPipe[4] is just one example of a great open YouTube client, that you can use on Android today).
[0]: https://postmarketos.org/blog/2017/09/03/100-days-of-postmar...
[1]: https://matrix.org
[2]: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Potential_apps
[3]: https://anbox.io/
Ancient devices don't cease to work (unless their hardware fails, of course). They just don't get upgrades and new features (new apps, etc etc). A factory reset (or reflash) may be required to get rid of cruft, then reinstall apps from backup - but afterwards it would work.
If the postmarketOS would offer more features (mostly I think of apps) than some ancient Android, this may be a reason to replace the OS. But I really doubt it would happen. It would require a lot of effort to get anywhere close to Android 4.x ecosystem.
And I believe most users would prefer old apps (downloaded as .apks from random archive sites) to some security patches they frequently don't even know about.
I'm kinda dealing with that with a modern company right now. My Ring doorbell doesn't work without Internet access and I can't get it for 7 days or so. I've got a home network setup, but no Internet. The Ring device won't even ring the bell on my house when you push the button, even though it is wired strait in... Now I'm off topic a bit.