Netgear is doing this to a) be relieved of liability of old routers and b) generate more revenue by selling new products. It's a big company that puts profits above everything else.
On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 9:43 AM Chris Fabien <[email protected]> wrote: > It's both really. How old are these routers when they go EOS? If it's > like ~5 years then honestly it's probably worth it to replace anyway > just to stay current. It's a good marketing move by Netgear... I am > sure that is really their motivation. But I don't have any problem > with that. In fact I'd rather my customers have an up to date customer > owned router versus a 10 year old one. It also makes the case that our > managed wifi routers really are a better value if they need to replace > that $150 Netgear router every few years. > > On Fri, Apr 24, 2026 at 3:38 PM Ken Hohhof <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > For maybe as much as a year now, I’ve had customers calling because they > got an email from Netgear saying their router is going end-of-support. > (customer provided router, not leased from us) I’m guessing Netgear had > their contact information because Netgear pushes pretty hard for you to > create an online account during setup. > > > > > > > > On the one hand, this seems like a good thing, warn people they will no > longer get firmware updates and tell them to replace their router. > > > > > > > > On the other hand, people seem to almost universally do what the email > says, including the recommended new Netgear router to buy, and it feels > like just good marketing on Netgear’s part. Also, I wonder what percentage > of these people ever updated their router firmware even once, or turned on > automatic updates. What good are firmware updates if you never do them? > > > > > > > > So what do you think? Public service by Netgear, or just a revenue > opportunity for them? > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > AF mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >
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