Comment by sublinear

I was implying that the answer has to be nostalgia. Ewaste didn't stop being produced some time in the early 2010s. There's always newer ewaste to look at.

You can buy more modern laptops made as recently as 2020 that are at least an order of magnitude better in every single way (even including weight) on Amazon and eBay for about $150 USD. They're lightly used and all hardware is supported without any fuss including the touch screens, etc. They're even cheaper if you buy them in bulk. These are institutional selloffs (schools, offices, government, etc.).

You do have to install Linux yourself though.