They need will to install a newer browser that comes with their own rendering engine (eg firefox or Mull) , Browsers that rely on the internal webView engine can't render these webapps properly as they lack the latest JS technology
You can't expect developers to write (especially new) software against old APIs that often are significantly worse and more annoying to develop for. This has nothing to do with "caring about the environment and reducing e-waste" since we're talking purely about software here. Instead blame phone manufacturers for not designing their phones so that they can be easily updated indefinitely. Install a newer Android version, it's not an iPhone
Give it some time. App support for Lemmy is basically alpha while Lemmy is at beta stage. The good news is that progress has picked up with the latest exit wave.
@eleitl I would like to be optimistic but most android apps nowadays just don't support older phones. And the trend is also prominent in the android Foss sphere.
A link aggregator app is quite basic. And shouldn't require the latest cutting edge tech to deliver a good experience.
RedReader and infinity are the best examples of how open source apps could be made. Light weight . customizable and backward compatible
I run LineageOS sans gapps with F-Droid so use only open source applications. These can be built easily for older systems, assuming you can install F-Droid on your older hardware.
Redditlikes are a lot more than just link aggregators, and the complexity is all server-side. Clients for these are not hard, though good UX is not easy. Which is why I'm currently using the web front end until Jerboa becomes usable or Slide is ported to Lemmy.
That is indeed pretty old. At current lifetime cycles a lot of hardware is doomed by obsolescence well before it's ready for the landfill.
There are some vendors like Fairphone and Framework that aim to support longer lived platforms. If it has a removable battery it's a good sign. If it's supported by a community rather than a corporation an even better one. Though with Android you're limited by upstream support, where some Google hardware is more special than other.
Not sure what the other apps are supporting. So web interface might be the only option left in this case.
There is a Jerboa fork that supports Android 5+ https://github.com/ShinyLuxray/jerboa/releases
Did you try https://vger.app? If you can get a somewhat current browser on your device, this provides one of the best lemmy experiences. Just install it as a PWA.