If anything they’re supporting hardware with driver/OS updates less now than before.

That is literally false information. Prior to the last year there has been no version of Android that has more than 4 years of operating system security updates, before that it was common to be 3 and before that 2. They bumped it to 7.

I have a good working Android tablet that I’ve replaced the batteries on twice that I now can no longer use because the OS won’t get updated any more (security risk, etc.). Perfectly working, has to go in the trash.

Literally what I just explained they've been working to change, and have changed for their latest devices.