The operating system doesn’t degrade, it is just the user installing more and more crap without cleaning. Which is regular usage for your average user.
A fresh install just gets rid of old crap that has nothing to do with the operating system.
In comparison, I regularly remove software I don’t need and make sure my startup is clean of things that don’t need to start every day and it keeps my Windows 11 fast as fuck. I have a laptop with an old Windows 11 install that is just as snappy as it was when I installed it.








Let me just start digging a hole in front of your door, and I dare you to stop it.
Imagine what kind of clusterfuck it would be if everyone just did what they wanted.