> I want to run a modern OS with modern features and still run any software that I already paid for 5, 10, 20 years ago.

I already have a bunch of software that I paid for more that 20 years ago and I can't use most of it outside of full VMs. Microsoft didn't ask me if I didn't use them anymore before removing Win16 support.

> Out of curiosity, have you asked customers to run your software in a VM? How did that conversation go?

Customers never got a choice "where to run your software" when all software I develop ends up hidden inside a SaaS service or being delivered via representational state transfer code on demand. They either run it on a browser sandbox or it doesn't run.