Didn’t the pace of change influence our perception more than anything else?

Don’t old computers on old operating systems work as well as they did when support was dropped? Much like your example of consoles?

The rate of software gobbling up newly available resources seems to a big reason people feel the need to move on. But I think that is starting to flatten out as the pace of processor improvements slows.

The bloat on the web is a huge burden on older devices too. Especially for your average person.

The bloat on the web and in native software (and in non-native software that is just another copy of Chrome posing as native software) comes from our newly available resources allowing for “lazy” development practices that prioritize cross platform development and other factors over writing efficient native software for each platform.

There are a lot of factors involved in the rate of device turnover. I don’t think any one factor is consistently forcing people to upgrade hardware. It’s a collective situation.

I use my desktop computers, for work, for nearly 10 years before replacing them. For my gaming computer, I swap in parts every 5-6 years.