Know what? I don’t know if you remember or not, but they tried this scam before.
I remember. Hell, I remember when they released WinME, intentionally broken, to force Win95/98 users over to Win2K. Of course, Win2K was a substantial improvement over Win95/98, being NT based.
Microsoft is DESPERATE to get people onto Windows 10.
Partly it's so that they can solidify their telemetry base. Win7 has gotten some "enhanced telemetry" updates (some call them "spyware injections") in the last two years, but they are, of necessity, merely cobbled onto Win7, and can in theory be more easily disabled. Whereas in Win10 they are an integral part of the operating system, and can't be entirely avoided. Microsoft needs that telemetry.
And partly it's so that they can migrate Windows from being an license-install-once-run-forever operating system, to a subscription model where you have to continuously send money to Redmond or else your computer stops working. Win7 users can't be subscription-ized, until they've switched to Win10.
You might call it protection. "Nice little operating system ya got there, be a shame is somethin' was to happen to it..."