While I agree that Microsoft is reasonable in supporting a product for only 14 years, and people don't like their support cut, I don't think that is really the base problem.
The real problem is that most XP users don't see any reason to upgrade. They have a computer that does what they need it to do. They don't need any of the new features that the newer versions of Windows have. My guess would be that most people would even be okay with replacing XP with Windows 7 if it would run on their hardware and Microsoft made a reasonable update utility (albeit at a price). People don't want to have to buy new hardware to do what their current hardware does perfectly well.
To use Linux distributions as a comparison, as is customary, the reason that people don't mind upgrading their distribution is because they don't have to go purchase a new system. The new software just works on the computer they have. If software is a service/product, then it deserves to be paid for--like RHEL--but it should not require newer hardware.
If Windows 7 would run at a decent speed where XP--even limited to the functionality of an updated XP--then there would be nowhere near this much commotion about the EOL of XP.
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While I agree that Microsoft is reasonable in supporting a product for only 14 years, and people don't like their support cut, I don't think that is really the base problem. The real problem is that most XP users don't see any reason to upgrade. They have a computer that does what they need it to do. They don't need any of the new features that the newer versions of Windows have. My guess would be that most people would even be okay with replacing XP with Windows 7 if it would run on their hardware and Microsoft made a reasonable update utility (albeit at a price). People don't want to have to buy new hardware to do what their current hardware does perfectly well. To use Linux distributions as a comparison, as is customary, the reason that people don't mind upgrading their distribution is because they don't have to go purchase a new system. The new software just works on the computer they have. If software is a service/product, then it deserves to be paid for--like RHEL--but it should not require newer hardware. If Windows 7 would run at a decent speed where XP--even limited to the functionality of an updated XP--then there would be nowhere near this much commotion about the EOL of XP.