Not accusing you of this, but the primary reason people run outdated software is a really problematic insistence, mostly by front-end people, on using the new-and-shiny instead of the tried-and-true. Breaking changes galore - so people stick with the past as much as possible.
Example: Office 365 OWA doesn't work well on modern browsers other than the latest version of Edge on Windows. But it does work fine on browsers that are older or pretend to be older! I'm technical enough to spoof my user agent, but Mom & Pop are just going to say "I don't like the new one, it broke stuff" and that will be that.
That's actually not my experience; I see people using "old" software all the time, and rarely looking for newer alternatives even if they feel that some things could be added or improved. As just an example, my mother still uses ATnotes - last released in 2005.
And I think the limited data we have shows that, like the number of people who upgraded their browsers before it was automatic.
Saying something is "old" is not a good enough reason to make people give it up.
Instead, tell them it's unsafe and insecure and it's free and super easy to use a newer browser. Then you've got something. Tell them them IE6 won't be deleted just in case they need to go back for some reason.
My car is over 10 years old, gets better mpg than many of today's cars and still has airbags. An argument that "it's old, better upgrade" wouldn't fly with me (unless somehow it was free and easy to upgrade, lol).
There's a huge difference between running outdated software with serious security problems and using older hardware that might be perfectly capable of running a modern OS and modern web browsers. I own both a 7 year old desktop PC and a 5 year old laptop that I use occasionally when I need to run some Windows-only program, and they're both perfectly capable of running Windows 10 and every other piece of software I've thrown at it.
I'm not so confident that's true. There's seemingly this prevailing attitude in IT that new is always better. The latest gadgets, the latest complicated tech stacks, and the latest languages. Rewrite everything again so it's all fresh and free of 'legacy cruft'. Don't fix bugs, prioritize slapping a new "modern" GUI on it so people don't think it's old. Why wouldn't that same mentality apply to people?
That is because people don't want to use older software and use newer software that is better. It is not the fault of the authors that their work is more timeless than software.
Old and working well. Newer is not always better, it seems software industry is increasingly having problems with stability precisely beause they keep introducing change that a lot of people don't actually want.
The point is that old software and hardware are everyday usable. There are modern day software that do not suffer from the same performance issues as some of the other bloated ones. Albeit very few exist.
One can always complain about things that don't work. Instead, look at everything that works well today - it is a very good way to bring usability back into perspective. The intent is in bringing computers way beyond their intended eras and keeping things running with them. The effort recognizes and acknowledges the mistakes done so that there is a course correction going forward. HTH.
Software these days is far worse. Using bloated web technology, not optimized, and the terrible trend of smartphone user interfaces on desktop operating systems. I keep archives of all the old software since everything is being replaced with a subscription-only, dreadful web application. There aren't any new features that I find appealing anyways.
I know people that still use really old computers. If you're trying to sell something to them, they aren't your market. If you think they care that your website looks like absolute crap on their computer, they don't really care. These aren't people that generally look at computing as anything more than something they grudgingly were forced to do. They know their computer is old and expect things not to work on them. It fits into their perception of computers being useless anyway.
I am glad that you explain why you downvote, but I disagree.
The fact that people love and use something doesn't mean it cannot be obsolete.
At work, I care about more than 35 years old software. It is obsolete (it's written in mainframe SAS with 3270 green screens and some assembly), but people still love using it, mainly because there is no good alternative and it does the job very well.
Example: Office 365 OWA doesn't work well on modern browsers other than the latest version of Edge on Windows. But it does work fine on browsers that are older or pretend to be older! I'm technical enough to spoof my user agent, but Mom & Pop are just going to say "I don't like the new one, it broke stuff" and that will be that.
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