As I understand it, 3rd party manufacturers do what they do by reverse-engineering how 1st party lenses connect to the camera, and then designing their own lenses to do likewise.
That means that if you buy a 1st party lens, it's guaranteed to work with your camera. (Nikon aren't going to suddenly release a new lens or camera that doesn't work with their existing gear. They're going to test the hell out of that stuff!) But if you buy a 3rd party lens then theoretically it could stop working tomorrow.
On the other hand, you could argue that it's advantageous for a 1st party manufacturer to have lots of lenses available for their system, so they probably aren't going to break 3rd party stuff on purpose. Nikon surely knows that Sigma exist and that some Nikon customers have spent $$$ on Sigma lenses that they might like to actually use... even though, strictly speaking, Nikon make no guarantees that this will definitely work.
In reality, how common is it for a 3rd party lens to quit working due to an incompatibility? Is this a common problem or just a theoretical possibility? If your favourite 3rd party lens suddenly stops working, what can you do about it? Is the lens manufacturer going to care, or do you just have to toss the lens in the bin and go buy something else? (Presumably once everybody hears how this model of lens no longer works, its resale value becomes negative.)
For that matter, what's the worst thing that can go wrong with a lens? Presumably a total communications failure would mean the camera doesn't know what lens it has and the autofocus doesn't work any more. It's not like the glass itself can suddenly stop refracting light! (Then again, my camera body refuses to shoot if it doesn't detect a lens attached, so many I'd be unable to shoot anything? No idea how aperture control works without electronic communication either...)
Answer
But if you buy a 3rd party lens then theoretically it could stop working tomorrow.
Only if you try to use it with a camera model newer than the third party lens. If it worked with your camera when you first got it, it should continue to work with that camera. There's really no additional risk that it will suddenly stop working with a camera with which it currently works. Where the compatibility issues come in is when the camera maker introduces newer camera models that weren't available when the 3rd party lens company developed their lens.
That means that if you buy a 1st party lens, it's guaranteed to work with your camera.
Not necessarily, even though the risk is certainly much, much lower. But it does occasionally happen with first party lenses. When Canon introduced the 7D Mark II there was an initial compatibility issue with AF at focal lengths of around 100-130mm with the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II. Canon issued a firmware update for the 7D Mark II a few weeks later that fixed the issue.
In reality, how common is it for a 3rd party lens to quit working due to an incompatibility? Is this a common problem or just a theoretical possibility? If your favourite 3rd party lens suddenly stops working, what can you do about it? Is the lens manufacturer going to care, or do you just have to toss the lens in the bin and go buy something else?
It seems you are assuming that a third party lens model can just spontaneously stop working with the same cameras with which it has previously worked. That is not the risk of buying a third party lens. I guess it's possible a firmware update to the camera could theoretically cause issues with a third party lens that previously was fully functional, but I've never encountered such a situation. The issue is usually only seen when trying to use an existing third party lens with a newly introduced camera model that wasn't available when the lens was being designed. Such lenses will continue to work with the cameras with which they previously worked.
Lens manufacturers, including third party makers, will vary with how much they stand behind and support their lenses. The two or three largest names in the third party lens market tend to support them very well. In the past firmware updates would often be made available but required a trip to a service center to be applied to the lens. Often these were offered at no or very little cost for a specified time period after issues were discovered and corrected through a firmware update.
Recently, though, Sigma and now Tamron have developed hardware docks and made them available to end users so that the firmware running in lenses can be updated by the owner without having to send the lens off to the manufacturer's service facility. It's as simple as downloading the updated firmware and using a USB dock to load it onto your lens.
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