How can vendors expect to migrate reluctant users to more reliable and up-to-date operating systems like Windows 10 or El Capitan -- especially when upgrade notices and reminders break earlier versions?
Managing obsolescence is a huge challenge for platform vendors. There are usually two opposing forces driving the challenge: inertia and entropy. While both inertia and entropy can be described in some depth using actual science, for our purposes we'll summarize the terms in this way: people don't like to change and stuff breaks over time.
Take, for example, Windows XP. There is no doubt, from a technical and security point of view, that XP is long past its expiration date. It is actually dangerous to run on the Internet. But there are
a whole lot of people who have been using XP forever, know it intimately, and don't want to give it up.
