Open source and forced obsolescence
When something works well you don't want to spend good money to replace it. Different is not always better.
(I found this little cutie at a blog site in 2005. She's probably in first grade by now and looks nothing like this.)
But many proprietary companies force you to upgrade anyway. It's necessary for their business models. A company that sells the market once can't keep paying its people, so the old stuff must wear out in some way and you must insist the new stuff is better.
I know many people who chafe at this. For them open source is a godsend. They can ignore the siren call of change, use what works, and save money.
But obsolescence is a double-edged sword.
One of the biggest problems open source projects have is that users resist security updates. Unless you patch your stuff when called upon you are insecure, an easy mark for a hacker who can exploit the old code.
In this way bad guys become the best marketers you have. Security patches maintain the link between buyer and seller, providing a steady stream of service that buyers find worth paying for.
Security patches don't make software functionally better. They are simply necessary, especially if your open source runs under Windows.
But you are left back where you started. The project has a continuing obligation to patch, and a continuing reason to keep dinging users for support. If the project fails users still have the code, but they are on their own against the bad guys.
So is forced obsolescence really a problem, or is it a challenge?