discontinuing support is in fact breaking it, especially when (as the original post describes) the company deliberately architects things so that they cannot be maintained and arbitrarily cuts support.

On the contrary, the post is describing how they're maintaining the equipment beyond it's service life - it's not broken.

Second [...]

There's no indication that the company that manufactured the microscopes does not offer support? Maybe the guy's lab just doesn't want to pay for it.

I make no claims about the moral intent of capitalism

You literally said that discontinuing support is unethical.

I’d say evidence is to the contrary. The internet, for example, is essentially a socialist or even communist endeavour

If you think the last 30 years of internet tech is non-capitalist I don't know what to say to you.

[...] I’d love to contribute, but in my regular capitalist job [...]

Sorry mate, you've kind of ranted yourself onto a tangent here.

I'm not advocating capitalism, I'm merely saying that there are reasons why things are the way that they are that commenters here seem unable to consider.

Lemmy has of course inherited reddit's hatred of corporate profiteering. Of course we should be wary of companies pursuing profit to the detriment of the societies they function within, but that doesn't mean that all company's are engaging in greedy profiteering nor that all corporate behavior is an example of greedy profiteering.

I also made the incendiary claim that no one here would open source the software client for the microscope at EoL. I stand by that.

The model in question is the only one we have for oligopolies producing specialist equipment. There are few buyers, few producers, and the R&D costs are high in comparisson to volume sold.

Many commenters are making the absurd and unsupported claim that open sourcing software for older models is somehow "good customer service" that will inspire future sales. IMO this type of claim is the height of arrogance, as though any commenter here has more data and more experience than the management of these companies. As though no one at any of these companies has ever considered that open sourcing their client software might boost future sales. Of course they have considered it, and based on the market research and financial models that they have access to and we do not, they have concluded that whatever they're doing right now is the best way forward.

As always in this kind of banter, commenters are looking for lazy generalisations on which to base their reasoning. Companies are greedy and bad. Open Source and Socialism is Good. There is always nuance that explains why things are the way they are. Sometimes corporate behavior is the result of excessive greed, but more often there are reasonable explanations.