The nice thing about 32bit is that they can run pretty much anywhere.
this is true. i have to say that even as a 32-bit holdout, i dont know how long im going to care about this. ive got just one 32-bit machine.
5 years ago, any of the homeless people i knew with laptops (a good number, considering the climbing popularity of smartphones) were up to 64-bit except one guy who i gave a 32bit machine to.
people are throwing out 32-bit stuff less and less.
im probably going to keep doing 32-bit as long as i can find used 32-bit stuff, but its getting impractical even for me. the intel core2 is now 12 years old-- even if i have 32-bit hw, im probably trying to find a use for it and coming up with stuff like clocks and "finding out the oldest specs something will run on."
i should probably go 64-bit in a couple years. heck, every program i really care about is either 64-bit only or relies on python or standard gnu utils.
32-bit is almost-- not quite-- as globally irrelevant as 16-bit software now. but i respect every single person who can name real exceptions. next year i may pick up a laptop for 10-25 bucks that is 32-bit, but the only thing i absolutely needed it for last year was connecting to a very old (parallel) laser printer. i used an old dell with wheezy, then fig os for that.
what about routers? how many of those are 32-bit these days? i mean they all run dd-wrt/librewrt, older 32-bit arm processors are still in use but since im only supporting x86, that doesnt really count. its really getting to be a challenge to find anybody serious about running 32-bit, but id love to hear from them. i still dont support 64 right now, because 32 runs fine and im too lazy to support both.