alt Hacker NewsYou can buy it if you use discernment. Obviously you'll run into compatibility issues in certain situations - like you aren't going to be able to use a library coupled to Phoenix 1.3 functionality in a Phoenix 1.8 project, but I continue to be surprised at how I can add a package like https://hex.pm/packages/deep_merge, which is 6 years old and it works just fine.
Phoenix is the exception to the usual rule. It's the only Elixir package where I've encountered substantial friction during upgrades.
Unfortunate, since it's one of the flagship Elixir packages, but I think the upgrades are worth the trouble. Better to improve something than to leave it broken solely for the sake of legacy compatibility IMO.