Not just speed but instructions.
> you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models
TPM support at this point in time is very old, roughly 7 years or so, along with processor model. Newer processors lack the appropriate features to support the security features of Windows 11, i.e. VBS.
New OSes have new features which require new hardware; new being highly relative here as it's quite old hardware at this point.
In fact, let's compare this pointless consumer-hostile debacle with XP, where MS went out of their way to actually improve security by heavily revamping XP and keeping it alive longer than it would have been. Meanwhile, the obvious reality that's going to happen this time around is people are not going to throw out their machines, those machines are just going to stop getting security updates. Great work, Microsoft.
So really then, what is it you're trying to advocate, that this is all...good? Or is it just argument for argument's sake?
> It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware.
Of course it supports some hardware in use right now. But core requirements were generally just speed, now even if you have a fast processor, you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models. Vista had more compatibility issues than usual with peripherals, but that's quite different from having to toss the whole machine. And even then: Vista was released in 2007. You had 7 more years to stay on XP.
Not only are we handwaving the obvious reality that hardware used to have a shorter effective life because it was advancing so rapidly, but the Pentium 233 came out in 1997. XP went EOL in 2014. That's almost 20 years of hardware support. My family has various machines from 2015, 2017, etc. that otherwise work perfectly fine but don't support W11. I have an older laptop with a 4 core (8 HT) 2.6 GHz CPU (3.6 Turbo) with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM, amply powerful, but nope, no Windows 11.