Unfortunately, forced firmware updating is an area our governments should not be mandating. That puts unnecessary strain on small companies and creates a larger gap that companies must cross to become commercially viable
Yea, it's a hard problem. While there's clearly a lot of vulnerabilities out there that emerge because it's cheaper to ignore security until you're large enough for a breach to be a big issue, forcing mandatory updates is a great way to discourage anyone from attempting to try something new. There might be a tipping point at which the costs of a breach outweighs the benefit, and maybe we've hit it already, but government mandates should be something we discuss cautiously and should prefer to avoid.