Google pushing out a new letter each year is working wonders even if the hardware does not degrade at all. People remember how a major update years ago did make things noticeably better and won't easily give up hope that the current increments would be similar (same thing for hardware btw, people remember the huge progress between the very first generations of smartphones and want to repeat that experience, no matter how futile the attempt might be).

Internet lore suggests that the majority of users does not care at all for Android versions, but I don't think that this is true: median users do care, just not as much as the vocal group that mistakes the lower level for not caring at all.

I wonder if google even wants to continue the yearly update circus or if they feel pressure from manufacturers to keep that wheel rolling.

It might be too subtle for you to see but there's real advancement going on in those new releases. Some of those features are security-related, which is the same kind of thing that drives many iOS features. IMO Google does good by releasing new updates to Android and for their branded devices they usually offer one or more of these updates before they stop supporting them. If you choose to root the devices, often the community will support the new Android releases with their ROMs.

> one or more of these updates

Which ends up (in some cases) not even being two years of support, for instance the Nexus 6.

Meanwhile the iPhone 5 will run iOS 10 when it comes out, making it four years of updates, and counting for that phone.

Security might be served much better with a more "LTS" Android that would give hardware companies less excuses to leave devices behind. Not only less excuses, but also less incentive to do so: "no more boring security updates" is a much weaker carrot to lure users to new devices than "no more exciting new sugary snacks", which usually also implies no more security updates anyways.

If you want me to buy another phone every year or two you will need to provide me with something I want and not force me because the old one is now broke. Especially at a price tag of almost $1000.

I didn't buy the note 5 not because of the fixed battery but because they removed the SD slot.

I don't think that's the reason. If your battery is dead, it's easy and cheap to get it replaced nowadays. Not a good enough reason to buy a new phone.

It's psychology: people want an upgrade justification, and the threat of a few days without a phone is enough for most people.

Also you can usually swap the phone for a refurbished model with a new battery. I did that with my iPhone 4. Slightly more expensive than a battery replacement service, but same day.

Yep. I'm still using my galaxy s2. Had to replace the back twice and the battery once. Bought it in 2013. Total I've paid for my phone is about $50 over the last 3 years. It's really crazy how many people have been tricked into thinking they absolutely need to pay hundreds every year or 2 and that they need to pay dozens of dollars per month for service. Absolute racket.

Unfortunately, the software and to some extent the network assumes frequent upgrades.

Despite having a relatively newish s4, the number of apps that simply won't work with my phone is astonishing. And once I passed the 2-year point of ownership, the number of network glitches has noticeably increased (dropped calls, messages taking hours to go through, loss of 4G for hours for no apparent reason).

I wouldn't be surprised if some of these glitches are intentional.

Have you updated that phone regularly? I have one for testing here, and it's become so slow, I don't even know how one could use it every day... Even if they bring back removable batteries, software updates will take care of the deprecation. Just look at an iPad 2 with iOS9 today...

Oh god heavens no. Turning off updates was the first thing I did when I got my phone.