Or maybe they will launch Win 12 with optional TPM support.
Imho making the OS(es) TPM only cannot be good for their business, many people are still on Win 10 with no intention to switch, since their motheboard does not support TPM and do not want to upgrade PC / waste PCI-E slot on TPM extension.
Probably worth noting that TPM often needs to be enabled in the motherboard’s BIOS. It’s possible that OP has it already, but got the “you don’t have TPM” error when trying to upgrade to Win11, simply because it isn’t activated in their BIOS.
Yup, seems likely given how it’s baked in and has been baked in for years.