Does this also mean older devices are forced into obsolescence? Since this is minsdk and not maxsdk it sounds like it, but there's still many apps that run on my 2018 device with Android 7 (and even 2012 device with 4.4) so that can't really be.
No, they aren't linked. Maybe you are mixing it with compileSdk, that and targetSdk are usually linked but minSdk is almost always considerably behind.
