Eh, it's a trade-off for sure, but "consumer friendly" is a stretch. Intel still have the issue of requiring BIOS updates for new CPUs, and the issue with havin

Eh, it's a trade-off for sure, but "consumer friendly" is a stretch. Intel still have the issue of requiring BIOS updates for new CPUs, and the issue with having to remove BIOS support can be solved by just telling motherboard manufacturers to spec larger for it so they have room for more. In contrast, the upside of being able to slot a Ryzen 5000 CPU into a machine that you bought for first gen is a big deal in terms of the lifetime of those other components, and gives consumers a lot of flexibility. I get some people just won't utilise that and will buy fresh, but just because it isn't worth it for you personally doesn't mean it isn't a good feature more generally.