This article seems to misunderstand Google’s claims in multiple ways. This is clearly an anti-consumer practice but it’s not a broken promise.

Any claims about how long a system will be supported have almost always been relative to when it first released. Apple, Samsung, and countless other consumer hardware vendors do this too. Those claims don’t consider when the last unit of the same device model was manufactured or when the last customer buys one from “new” inventory, even though those should be very important factors for its lifespan.

Chromebooks have always been even worse than most in that respect: if multiple Chromebook models from different vendors have similar board hardware and the same CPU family (more accurately, using the same “platform” directory in the code), they’re all considered one system in terms of lifecycle. Even someone who bought a brand new Chromebook model on release day might have already missed more than a year of its lifecycle before then, since new laptops sometimes use the previous year’s CPU.

In addition, if you say a certain device will be supported with OS updates for 10 years, that doesn’t imply that it’ll still have the same OS with the same branding the whole time. They never guaranteed every update will remain compatible with every piece of software you use on it, either. A Chromebook from 2016 that could run uBlock Origin and NaCl apps then won’t be able to run them after installing all current OS updates in 2026.

Google broke the deal by closing Android, Google is evil now, not to be trusted.

or qualifying devices purchased today whose 10-year support lifecycle extends beyond 2034, Google is committed to supporting your transition to Googlebook OS, with many devices offering direct migration paths.

What a pleasant way for them to say “get tossed.”

sounds like google is doing more evil yet again all for ai datacenters more ai slop more hallucinations

They couldn’t even live up to their initial promise of “Don’t be evil,” and yet people thought they might not do it this time?

You mean the same promise they just made about their brand new “Googlebooks”?

For qualifying devices purchased today whose 10-year support lifecycle extends beyond 2034, Google is committed to supporting your transition to Googlebook OS, with many devices offering direct migration paths.

To be fair it sounds like there will be an upgrade path? Just that you will have to make an upgrade that might bring significant changes to the OS 8 years from now..

Sounds like a class action. Some corporate buyer or school will probably sue. I predict the judgement will end up being a coupon for $100 off one of the new googlebooks.

I bought an old HP Chromebook 11 G6. Expecting some sort of Android apps running on it. Nope. Nothing. Just really shit Chrome OS, with the newest update. It refused to work with my SD card, once I managed to get it working and simply pasted some files on my PC, the card was unreadable again. So I unlocked the device and installed Linux. Now I have an OK thing for remote management of my server, browsing, VS Code and DOS games emulation. I didn’t expect much from ChromeOS, but it took me by surprise how shit it was.

unrelated, but seeing the 2030s pop up in “near future” news, is still feeling quite weird