Is there an actual reason for it, apart from Apple hurrying devs along?
For the consumer, the benefits of backwards compatibility are obvious, but it’s sad that companies don’t see it as a selling point.
Well, we wouldn’t want anyone using their perfectly functional copy of Photoshop CS6 would we…
The Apple Silicon dev kit shipped in 2019 and the cutoff date is 2028, so it's a pretty mild form of hurry.
If you want to continue to run older software, do what you would do in Windows 11 and spin up VM with an older version of the OS.
I keep a Windows 2000 VM with no network access around just to occasionally play Heroes of Might and Magic 3.
Apple has historically always been about pushing devs forwards and dropping support for legacy systems.
Their attitude has been "we built new hardware, we built new software, we have the tools to develop for these new systems, adapt or die".
This Rosetta 2 transition is actually a couple years longer that their first PPC -> Intel transition. There's more time to adapt this go around.