The thing that I don't understand is that, if this is such a big problem for Microsoft, why not just remove the system requirements or at least make an alternative version of Windows 11 that, even if it lacks certain features, doesn't have those requirements?
Microsoft wants people to switch to Windows 11 but a majority stay with Windows 10 because their systems don't have what's required and they're either not willing to use Linux or they can't for what ever their reason is. Making Windows 11 more accessible to Windows 10 users would fix this problem for most users but they're not for some reason. I know they're Microsoft and Microsoft doesn't care about their users but they're seemingly willing to lose a significant portion of their users over something so insignificant, which is out of character for Microsoft.
I'd guess it's corporate circlejerk - they probably made deals with hardware manufacturers who are annoyed people are not replacing their perfectly functional systems with new ones. Windows gets pre-installed on new systems, and in exchange windows requires new things forcing people to upgrade their old systems - or be locked out of the most popular OS in the world.
I suspect it has to do with Microsoft wanting to lock down PC hardware (again) in a similar fashion as mobile hardware to their own benefit so they're being aggressive with trying to get that ball rolling by forcing people to do it their way, both with hardware (TPM, secure boot, higher system spec requirements for AI) and with software (forcing a Microsoft account over a local account, default encrypting the system and uploading the keys, etc).
They've probably calculated this move and are prepared to lose a chunk of their users to Linux.