> Consumer and 'free' software is the exception, and it's a recent exception with rapid release schedules. It's just shifting the costs from the vendor (maintaining old products) to the consumer (changing/upgrading).
It's important to note that in many cases, the vendor pays for what is otherwise a free service (Reader, Wave, G+). In the case of some services, they may gather some data from which they can profit from, but that doesn't always pay the bills.
So yes, the customer may have to switch services or upgrade, but unlike enterprise software, they aren't paying four to six figures to use said services.
Consumer and 'free' software is the exception, and it's a recent exception with rapid release schedules. It's just shifting the costs from the vendor (maintaining old products) to the consumer (changing/upgrading).