Market cap doesn’t say anything about fundamentals. That’s what profits are for. If you haven’t noticed, Microsoft is de-emphasizing Windows as a profit center.

Both companies have plenty of profits and the resources needed to maintain 32-bit compatibility indefinitely.

So I guess Apple should also have maintained support for 68K Macs indefinitely? Microsoft should have maintained support for 16 bit apps on 64 bit Windows? Should MS have also maintained support for running real mode 286 apps forever?

This is a bit different. Catalina is a casual upgrade. There is no warning during the install process. They'll see that something worked yesterday, same OS, same computer, and now it doesn't.

Yes there is.

https://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/macos-c...

If the app isn't "recently" used, it doesn't warn you. I ran into this myself.

You said “They'll see that something worked yesterday, same OS, same computer, and now it doesn't.“

So “yesterday” doesn’t count as “recently”?

It was a poor choice of works. I didn't run Word 2011 yesterday - more like several months ago - but it would've worked yesterday before the upgrade.

The point remains: this will still bite people.