>I hope this new trend of crippling software, after a set time period, comes to an end.
I don't really disagree with you but the idea that a piece of software you buy will run forever is an idealization. In theory, you can supposedly run some unupdated, unpatched app on a similarly unupdated OS in a VM forever. In practice though, you'll increasingly have problems running a software version that's long out of support.
The time scales are different of course; the app will likely run for a few years at least. But, as some point, you'll probably need to upgrade.
My wife has an embroidery machine. The very expensive embroidery software runs on Windows XP. I have a VM dedicated for this software with no intention to update. Obsolescence for software shall not be acceptable. Bits do not rot.
When you elevate everyone else’s risk exposure by driving too fast on a public road or smoking in a public place, you pay a fine. I imagine we’ll need to do the same to people who feel that “bits do not rot” operating ancient software on the internet. (With similar allowances for doing whatever you want in private).
That's the important distinction. If you have, in effect, an embedded application/OS that isn't networked or for that matter a 1980s gaming machine, you can run CP/M for all I care as long as it's isolated from the external network (and ideally not networked at all). But if you're connecting to the Internet with an unsupported version of Windows, you're being irresponsible.
Because your computer is going to infect someone else's computer with a virus? If that's the argument, then this thread is starting to look like a vax/anti-vax debate.
The expectations for industrial systems and, for that matter, a lot of mainframe software are quite different--and the costs tend to be baked into the price of the software and the rest of the environment they operate in. And, a lot of the time, that software is under (expensive) support contracts.
I don't really disagree with you but the idea that a piece of software you buy will run forever is an idealization. In theory, you can supposedly run some unupdated, unpatched app on a similarly unupdated OS in a VM forever. In practice though, you'll increasingly have problems running a software version that's long out of support.
The time scales are different of course; the app will likely run for a few years at least. But, as some point, you'll probably need to upgrade.