The point is people like my mom who prefer to buy phones every five years or more and hate disposable technology aren’t left in the stone ages.
It is very much a selling point, and it’s very much something with a dollar value. Unfortunately customers constantly undervalue software.
Microsoft Office is $60 a year to stay up to date. YNAB is $85 a year. Tinder Plus is $120 a year. Evernote Premium is $96 a year. Of course software and software services are valuable.
One example, when I was an android user I got tired of not having all the current emojis on day one. That’s a small thing but it’s a great example of something the Play store can’t take care of.
Remember that Google says “3 years of software and security updates.” That means security updates end after 3 years.
I’ll admit that Apple doesn’t actually promise anything specific, but their track record speaks for itself.
Someone stuck with Lollipop can’t use the latest Google Photos version, another example.
My Android based smart TV set no longer works with pretty much any apps because it’s stuck on <5. This is a TV that manufactured in 2014. So this TV lost half its features after just 4 years. Luckily I didn’t buy it to be “smart.”