viking , 5 hours ago

Not at all. It would maintain functionality at the current status quo, and browsers would still receive updates and keep current with server based technology. If anything required additional components to use new technologies or display novel applications, that would be a hardware based change that won’t be fixed through a system update regardless.

You can still browse the web just fine on a phone from 2010 running Android 2.3 - many applications are now unsupported, but if Google (or Apple, for that matter) were to stop updating the OS, then application developers would stay at the current technology level that make hardware upgrades unnecessary.

Some apps that require google services (I’m sure there’s an equivalent for iOS) might no longer work, but most run just fine regardless.

If security is what you’re getting at, at least for Android, there are excellent third party solutions that keep attackers out even on an end of life device (shoutout to Hypatia).