The original assertion was that a Chromebook becomes useless ewaste when the software updates stop. But as of today Chromeos gets software updates for longer than any Linux distro major release (10 years ChromeOS vs 5 years for Linux). You can install Linux on that Chromebook after Google stops supporting it just the same as the Windows laptop after Dell stops supporting it. And there’s CloudReady and Chromium. Theyre not ewaste without Google updates, you have options.