The argument is that by creating unnecessary waste they are imposing an externality on everyone. Why should societies that control the rules of trade within them allow a company to force extra infrastructure on everyone for safely disposing of a much higher level of waste?
I think the suggested laws to combat this would be that companies must allow users to take control of their own devices once official support is no longer available. Paying enthusiasts to create a distribution of Linux for the device would be a cheap way of ensuring your devices fit that kind of law. It's just a way of saying that devices must be reusable, even without further manufacturer support.
I had an original ipad, and it was almost unusable within a year of me buying it because of forced software upgrades it couldn't take.
I think the OP means Apple should pay because they will provide support after Apple declares EOL. And the OP argues support beyond EOL should be mandated by law.
At very least, manufacturers should be asked to unlock things and provide documentation to let the community support devices. It's incredible the amount of devices that have perfectly fine hardware but are crippled due to the lack of software updates.
After selling your streetlamps to cities far and wide, you have decided that your lamps won't be supported anymore, and their critical control software won't even be updated for security issues.
Instead of leaving them unsafe to use, you need to make it so the buyer can continue to use them safely, even though the light output may be reduced or they might not be as cutting-edge (eye-friendly wavelength, for example) as your new offerings.
Everyone is free to update to the new lamps if they want to, but there should be no artificial reason to force them to do so.
I think paid it's the wrong word, but I agree that at least they should offer drivers for the hardware you own. Like if I get an AMD card, they provide drivers for Linux, and windows. At least they should for devices they don't plan on supporting anymore themselves.
A little bit idealistic, but we should make Apple accountable of their "eco friendly" image, we already have enough e-waste, to keep dumping good hardware to the trash because it not longer has support from Apple, despite working perfectly fine and safe with other OS like Linux.
