Why in the world would you think that? Who do you think governments target, Bond villains?
I've always wondered, if you can't hack your main target's phone, but their kid has an old iPhone you can hack and maybe bug (let's just say you can for the argument's sake), you sure as hell do it right?
Scary thought but I think it's reasonable to be concerned that not just a given sensitive target is directly at risk, but those around them as well.
There are plenty of people who get hacked by governments. A smattering of targets got leaked here: https://www.occrp.org/interactives/project-p/#/
I wouldn't expect a Kazakh artist/activist to have the money for the latest and greatest iPhone. Nor would I expect an activist against an industrial plant on the US side of the Mexican border to need to worry about nation-state level malware.
And frankly, my PC has been used safely since much longer than iOS has been supported, and I don't know why I shouldn't expect my phone to last that long. The rate at which phones got performance improvements has stagnated into gimmick-level power increases (like "AI accelerators") a long time ago.