I think a key difference between Windows and MacOS is that Microsoft has (historically at least) not stopped you from installing newer versions of Windows on older hardware, provided it's fast enough to run it.

Trying to run newer versions of MacOS on 10 year old Apple hardware is next to impossible.

Windows 11 has a requirement for TPM 2.0, which older hardware doesn't have. I believe that requirement check is relatively easy to patch out and install anyway.

I got off this rollercoaster by using Linux. My 10 year old Thinkpad works just fine today, and probably will for another 10 years.

Linux isn't for everyone, of course. But avoiding this charade is a nice bonus.

We know exactly what the hard cutoff is for CPUs. This feature is what the official CPU list is based on. (with the exception of 7th gen intel systems added due to the surface linup)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Level_Address_Translati...

Soft support is actually just Secure Boot and TPM1.2, so you could probably install from ISO, the installer will not warn you about any issues. I have tried this on 6th gen i7 laptops without an issue. Technically you are just blocked from recieving an update to 10, but not from running or using 11. You can even get 11 working on systems without a TPM, but that is more tricky.

I would say OS support is still better overall on the windows side, you can get a still supported OS, on 15 year old systems (win10). And on the EOL date it will be about equivalent. We will see what the future holds for 12.