Just look up how to skip the "OOTB (out of the box) experience" and you can still bypass having to set up a cloud account on Windows 11 and can just set up a local account like normal. :)
These sorts of hurdles exist to push more and more users to their favorite workflow until the dissenting voice is too feeble to notice when they finally pull the plug on the straightforward method. The intent is certainly there, since they are quite evidently boiling the frog. Just wait for the fine day when you wake up in the morning to see an HN story just like this one about Windows login as well.
Setting things up was much more complicated as well. But I stuck it out, still hate Windows, but I've gotten a bit used to it.
> But there is no way an average system user is going to have the patience or often the skill necessary to do it.
It's like two commands. Super easy.