> How many people do you see using 2010 smartphones with replaceable batteries?

How many 2010 smartphones have security updates that you can safely use? It's a chicken and egg problem.

For every person that chases the shinny new thing there are plenty of people who don't care about that and just want to have minimal functions, phone, sms, video chat, some decent photos/video, and occasional online banking.

However due a broken business model from Tech giants and firmware lock-in from Mobile SoC manufacturers this is unattainable at the moment.

Vendors should be forced to maintain an LTS work stream to give the alternative to those costumers who do want to act sustainably. Unfortunately that will never happen unless they are forced by regulatory changes.

In 2010, smartphones were just taking off, every new generation offered significant improvement. 2010 smartphones are terrible by today's standards: small storage, underpowered, no 4G, bad camera, etc...

2015 smartphones are a different story. Things have stabilized, and a good 2015 smartphone should be perfectly usable today, a bit sluggish, but usable. And interestingly, that's when they stopped having user replaceable batteries. More generally, the market shifted from real obsolescence to planned obsolescence.

How many 2010 smartphones are still getting security updates, or updates that let them work with modern network standards? LTE was only barely available in 2010, and 3G is almost gone now.