What is the point of this article, other than as advertising?
It's stating the obvious. It hasn't changed. It's not going to change without legislation.
Let's do something useful on mobile phone review scoring out of 10. Take the overall score.
No commitment for at least three years of patching and Android upgrades (if the phone hardware can handle it) : cost in £100s/divided by £100 multiplied by minus two (£100=-2, £400=-8)
No unlockable bootloader and rooting capability : -11
No commitment to provide drivers/developer documentation so third party ROMs can be created for the latest released Android version (after a reasonable timescale) : -11
Manufacturer has form of lying about upgrades that are perfectly possible, technically : -4
No removable battery : -3
Note that doesn't mean they're obliged to enable upgrades to later versions for third parties - provided the latest supported version of Android for that phone can be patched, they get a pass.
If the score is below zero, the entire review is 'This phone got a score below zero. Only idiots buy phones with a score below zero. Are you an idiot?'
Of course the current situation, and the 'your non removable battery no longer holds a charge, better buy a new phone' attitude, keeps people on a two year phone upgrade treadmill.
Google (Nexus) do not get a pass on this one - they only patch phones up to about three years old.
Note that the Blackberry Priv, which Blackberry said would have news about a Marshmallow update 'in 1Q 2016' have seven days left to tell its users when an upgrade will be arriving..
Don't trust any mobile phone companies, don't buy an Android phone that can't be unlocked and rooted, and have Cyanongenmod applied to it. Going to update my 2012 phone to Marshmallow tonight, as it now has an SELinux enabled build, with official Cyanongenmod nightlies not far off. Without that I'd be stuck on insecure ICS.