Re: anarchic, fragmented, insecure, with a user base that lags far behind the latest code.
Those who have kitkat phones still are probably short of cash,and so have little choice but to buy an Android phone.
For me personally I find the 100 dollar vernee thor with 5 inch screen, 3 gb ram, and expandable storage perfectly adequate. It started off with marshmallow, before being upgraded to nougat. In a year or two when the patches run out I'll buy a more modern phone for another hundred dollars, and upgrade that in a couple of years. For me personally I find that for day to day usage the difference between this phone and a flagship is marginal in terms of user experience.
So for the 1000 dollars that I would pay for an iPhone x, I could fund myself a new phone every two years for 20 years (assuming things continue as they are). That is why the lack of continuous support doesn't particularly bother me.
If you are looking at the iPhone x vs the galaxy note, I think the lack of continuous updates is an issue. But then again I doubt most people who buy an iPhone x ate going to be keeping it for more than two or three iterations of iPhone anyway.