Sierra supports Macs back to 2009, so thats 7 years which I think is decent. If you want to use a 10-year old notebook, I doubt you're going to be troubled by a 3-year old OS.
Apple may seize support older hardware earlier than Microsoft does for a very easy reason: because they can. With the insane amount & combinations of hardware Windows has to support, there's no point in adding anything that's somewhat specific – plus they have a lot more of the "enterprisey" customers with a 15-year support contract and underfunded IT budget.
There are quite a few Macs in large companies nowadays, but from what I've seen, they are much more likely to adopt a consumer-like support system, i. e. giving root to the users or letting them individually buy & upgrade within a certain budget. They also tend to update more often, possibly because buying a Mac is already an indicator that they're willing to spend more / that they care about their tools.
It's also the complete opposite on mobile phones: not rare for Android phones to sometimes not even support a version that was already released when you bought it, whereas iPhones are good for about 4 iOS versions I believe.
Apple may seize support older hardware earlier than Microsoft does for a very easy reason: because they can. With the insane amount & combinations of hardware Windows has to support, there's no point in adding anything that's somewhat specific – plus they have a lot more of the "enterprisey" customers with a 15-year support contract and underfunded IT budget.
There are quite a few Macs in large companies nowadays, but from what I've seen, they are much more likely to adopt a consumer-like support system, i. e. giving root to the users or letting them individually buy & upgrade within a certain budget. They also tend to update more often, possibly because buying a Mac is already an indicator that they're willing to spend more / that they care about their tools.
It's also the complete opposite on mobile phones: not rare for Android phones to sometimes not even support a version that was already released when you bought it, whereas iPhones are good for about 4 iOS versions I believe.