I would disagree on the basis that Linux upgrades don't require hardware upgrades (unless you have a very low end hardware that's hanging by a thread already)
For example, I don't remember seeing all this fuss about upgrading when people were moving from 8.1 to 10 (but it could just be me on my bubble)
The difference is you now need a TPM 2.0 chip. That's pretty much it. Hardware requirements were the same as Win8.
If you are using a desktop computer, all you need to do is buy a $20-30 TPM 2.0 module and install it. It connects to a few pins and your done. It's cheap, simple, and easy to do.
The issue is most people now have laptops and quite a few didn't have that chip or that version (some have TPM 1.2, which isn't as secure anymore.) and you can't install it on a laptop motherboard. TPM 2.0 has been available since mid-2016, but some manufacturers might have cheapened out and not added it to save costs as it wasn't a necessary part. So basically, any laptop that is 9 years or older (or the manufacturer cheapened out) won't be able to upgrade to Win11.
I don't have any without. I do have ones where it's not mentioned in the manual but clearly there though. Edit: double checked the 9 boards I have laying around. All of them going back to 4th gen intel have them. dont have any pre ryzen amd laying around to check though.
Unless something has changed they took an axe to all 7th gen and older Intel CPUs and Ryzen 2000 and older AMD CPUs. This is the big challenge since this includes some very capable systems that are now just ewaste because Microsoft didn't want to maintain compatibility all the way back to the Pentium 4 and Core 2 Duo and cut off platforms that still have life left in them
You are right, those are not compatible, didn't realize that. The speed specs are the same, just a series block. With the worst part of this being that these are all going to be 10 years old when Win10 is completely unsupported, which is better then the non-Linix alternatives (MacOS, ChromeOS(?), Android, iPadOS).
Yeah the one saving grace is it's a very long lifespan compared to all other computing platforms, plus one can actually install an alternative operating system or even hack Windows 11 to install in an unsupported manner, but it still means millions of computers going to the ewaste bin