[thayne]

I think this a contributing factor, but not the whole story. Another part is in order to switch to arm64, your entire software stack needs to support that architecture. If you are using linux and open source software, you'll be fine for most, maybe all of that stack, especially if you are willing to compile things yourself. But it just takes one component to block the transition.

[physicsguy]

I see it as being a bit like the move from Python 2 to Python 3, but easier.

Most software that can run on x86_64 can run on ARM after recompilation. Some software does require changes (anything using vector intrinsics for e.g.). But in general, the biggest barrier is the dependencies.