why is “backwards incompatibility” a problem on consoles and not on pc when they’re basically just the same electronic parts (cpu, gpu, ram)
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It is not the same basic electronic parts in different generations of consoles. Each generation use a specific model of each component and it might not have anything in common with the previous or next generation. So one console can have a PowerPC processor, the next generation a tailor made special processor, and then they might go for an x86-64 processor next. And next up they might chose an ARM processor or maybe RISC-V. These processors have almost nothing in common except being processors. They work in completely different way so they can not run each others code.
Meanwhile PCs do not have generations. Each new component that is launched by any of the manufacturers have to be compatible with any of the components made by different manufacturers in the past five or so years, and software written for PCs ten years ago. So there is no opportunity to do anything revolutionary differently. Any new innovation needs to be backwards compatible with everything else. And this does mean that by accident things happens to backwards compatible with programs written 30 years ago.
The only similarities in the PC market to what is going on in the console market is the Apple PCs. These are made by one single company and they can therefore end up pushing for revolutionary changes in the technology. They did this when they changed from PowerPC to x86 and then again recently when they switched to ARM. But it should be mentioned that in doing so they made a huge effort on the software side to get most existing software compatible with the new technology.
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