> People are scared and want to save their asses so they make super low estimates. That way it sounds really good in the media when things keep working.
I think that's an unnecessarily pessimistic take. Any system can have its life expectancy modeled over a range, e.g. a 99% chance it will survive 1 month but only a 50% chance it will survive to 1 year. When you're just giving one number to the media or other stakeholders, e.g. "expected life span", (or, for that matter, a single estimate to your boss), to be able to give a value with high confidence you will have to pick a number that is in the 99%-ish range, which means there is a good chance your system will survive much longer.
I think that's an unnecessarily pessimistic take. Any system can have its life expectancy modeled over a range, e.g. a 99% chance it will survive 1 month but only a 50% chance it will survive to 1 year. When you're just giving one number to the media or other stakeholders, e.g. "expected life span", (or, for that matter, a single estimate to your boss), to be able to give a value with high confidence you will have to pick a number that is in the 99%-ish range, which means there is a good chance your system will survive much longer.