I get the author's sentiment. But speaking as an Android developer, we are forced to use newer APIs due to the following:

1. Deprecation - Google is notorious for deprecating APIs (it's a meme among Android devs) and we as developers are forced to move to using newer APIs

2. Google Play policies - From Google: "New apps must target Android 12 (API level 31) or higher; except for Wear OS apps, which must target Android 11 (API level 30) or higher."

3. Some APIs such as Jetpack Compose require a certain minimum SDK version (API 21). Therefore, if you want to use new APIs, you are forced to stop supporting old devices.

We wish we could continue supporting old devices but it's mostly out of app developers' hands.