It’s very difficult for the average person to use a ten year old browser; in fact I’d offer that the only way to use a ten year old browser is to be an expert and do so intentionally.
There are plenty of people with old android phones with no free disk space using ancient browsers.
There are plenty of people still using windows 10 with updates turned off or wedged for whatever reason.
These people just use the sites that work. They aren't computer experts, and might not even realise why half the internet doesn't work - they just think that's the way things are.
I think you're conflating "old device" with "10 year old browser" here. E.g. for:
> There are plenty of people still using windows 10 with updates turned off or wedged for whatever reason.
It'd be "the pool of people who installed Windows 10 immediately in the launch year but somehow accidentally blocked their browser from updating in the 10 years since, weren't able to fix the issue as the web slowly stopped working, and are stuck using that computer anyways" not "the pool of people still on Windows 10".
The latter won't have many non-intentionally pushed into "10 year old browser status" until 2038 at the earliest.
While I agree with your general gist and definitely your final paragraph,
> There are plenty of people with old android phones with no free disk space using ancient browsers.
How many people have 10 year old phones? I've got an 8 year old iPhone XR which I keep around as a backup/travel device because it's not worth selling, and the battery is… not happy even in airplane mode.
For me to have a 10 year old mobile browser, I'd have to have kept the iPhone SE 1 (or was it a 5c?) that I bought second hand in 2018, and not upgraded it since I bought it. I got rid of it because the battery wouldn't hold a charge for 10 minutes.
I've a Xiaomi Mi 6 phone (2017 model) that I still use as a fridge-mounted shopping list and it's using the latest version of Chrome. I think it would be quite the stretch to find a user using a 10 year old browser.
It's fine to support such configurations by accident, but you shouldn't try to support them intentionally. You will end up dropping support eventually regardless but the skeletons will live on in your codebase as tech debt.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
or windows 8[.1], or windows 7, or windows xp... there's a lot of old hardware out there, not every is rich/tech savvy (see also: old people) enough to purchase a new device even 10 years later
Eventually you are making things worse for your vast majority of users when you have to e.g. make them install a native app for a video call or use a TLS version that is broken to support those Gingerbread Android phones
I'm not sure this is a realistic use case to try and support. A 10 year old android phone likely has a battery life measured in 10s of minutes, and really isn't something we need to worry about.
There’s also being poor, or working for an organization that’s poor. In both cases the obsolete(?) software might be various degrees of intentional, but the alternative is usually worse anyway.
I support a bevy of older people with older computers, senior-citizen types. Upgrades are expensive. Monetarily, but also in retraining. These folks don't want the latest UI, they want what is familiar, and retraining is super annoying.
Computers that were EOL a few years ago, running ten-year-old browsers, are absolutely routine.
That's a choice by the people who make websites and browsers that forces the average person to buy a new computer. If we all cared about letting people use old computers, this wouldn't be the case.
I doubt that for the hackernews audience that the age of the browsers is an issue. I would say in practice that 90% is nowhere near what is achieved - that it's closer to 90% and amongst the hackernews audience probably lucky if it gets to 50% because of our use of anti-tracking and ad blockers.
Respectfully, you may live in a bubble of fairly tech-savvy folks. Most of my extended family run 10+ year old laptops as their daily drivers. Their phones are often on the second or third battery replacement. They don't install updates very often (if at all). For the most part they are still more proficient with tech than many of their peers.
The same way people generally equate luddism with anything. By entirely misunderstanding what it was to make a point that sounds snappy without all of that boring understanding history stuff.
It’s very difficult for the average person to use a ten year old browser; in fact I’d offer that the only way to use a ten year old browser is to be an expert and do so intentionally.
There are plenty of people with old android phones with no free disk space using ancient browsers.
There are plenty of people still using windows 10 with updates turned off or wedged for whatever reason.
These people just use the sites that work. They aren't computer experts, and might not even realise why half the internet doesn't work - they just think that's the way things are.
I think you're conflating "old device" with "10 year old browser" here. E.g. for:
> There are plenty of people still using windows 10 with updates turned off or wedged for whatever reason.
It'd be "the pool of people who installed Windows 10 immediately in the launch year but somehow accidentally blocked their browser from updating in the 10 years since, weren't able to fix the issue as the web slowly stopped working, and are stuck using that computer anyways" not "the pool of people still on Windows 10".
The latter won't have many non-intentionally pushed into "10 year old browser status" until 2038 at the earliest.
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While I agree with your general gist and definitely your final paragraph,
> There are plenty of people with old android phones with no free disk space using ancient browsers.
How many people have 10 year old phones? I've got an 8 year old iPhone XR which I keep around as a backup/travel device because it's not worth selling, and the battery is… not happy even in airplane mode.
For me to have a 10 year old mobile browser, I'd have to have kept the iPhone SE 1 (or was it a 5c?) that I bought second hand in 2018, and not upgraded it since I bought it. I got rid of it because the battery wouldn't hold a charge for 10 minutes.
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I am an expert and half the internet does not work. That's just the way things are
I've a Xiaomi Mi 6 phone (2017 model) that I still use as a fridge-mounted shopping list and it's using the latest version of Chrome. I think it would be quite the stretch to find a user using a 10 year old browser.
It's fine to support such configurations by accident, but you shouldn't try to support them intentionally. You will end up dropping support eventually regardless but the skeletons will live on in your codebase as tech debt.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
> windows 10
or windows 8[.1], or windows 7, or windows xp... there's a lot of old hardware out there, not every is rich/tech savvy (see also: old people) enough to purchase a new device even 10 years later
Eventually you are making things worse for your vast majority of users when you have to e.g. make them install a native app for a video call or use a TLS version that is broken to support those Gingerbread Android phones
I'm not sure this is a realistic use case to try and support. A 10 year old android phone likely has a battery life measured in 10s of minutes, and really isn't something we need to worry about.
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There’s also being poor, or working for an organization that’s poor. In both cases the obsolete(?) software might be various degrees of intentional, but the alternative is usually worse anyway.
I support a bevy of older people with older computers, senior-citizen types. Upgrades are expensive. Monetarily, but also in retraining. These folks don't want the latest UI, they want what is familiar, and retraining is super annoying.
Computers that were EOL a few years ago, running ten-year-old browsers, are absolutely routine.
That's a choice by the people who make websites and browsers that forces the average person to buy a new computer. If we all cared about letting people use old computers, this wouldn't be the case.
I wouldn't conflate old computers and old browsers. I still use an over 10 year old laptop and it still has a latest browser.
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I doubt that for the hackernews audience that the age of the browsers is an issue. I would say in practice that 90% is nowhere near what is achieved - that it's closer to 90% and amongst the hackernews audience probably lucky if it gets to 50% because of our use of anti-tracking and ad blockers.
Respectfully, you may live in a bubble of fairly tech-savvy folks. Most of my extended family run 10+ year old laptops as their daily drivers. Their phones are often on the second or third battery replacement. They don't install updates very often (if at all). For the most part they are still more proficient with tech than many of their peers.
Or use a smart TV (most apps on TVs are web apps. Enjoy: https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/specifications...
The same way people generally equate luddism with anything. By entirely misunderstanding what it was to make a point that sounds snappy without all of that boring understanding history stuff.
Ha, I had the same thought, if you actually know the history of Luddites vs the more colloquial usage of "someone who hates all technology."
Well, being these days that a browser over 5 minutes old probably has a security flaw, it's not much of a reach.