If Microsoft didn't mandate TPMs for hardware running Windows 11 (or kept Windows 10 supported in parallel indefinitely), then governments wouldn't be able to p

If Microsoft didn't mandate TPMs for hardware running Windows 11 (or kept Windows 10 supported in parallel indefinitely), then governments wouldn't be able to pass such a law without potentially bricking the computers of millions of citizens. I'm not expecting Microsoft to make a moral stand against TPMs, but they could at least have accidentally been on the right side just by not mandating TPM support. You have to look at the incentives, though. If a government passed this law, it would put huge barriers in the way of people developing innovative new Linux distros, especially if, in practice, every distro had to pay a "tax" to Microsoft to have their signing keys whitelisted by device manufacturers. Even if Microsoft didn't see this as a way to stifle niche OSes, industry groups (of which Microsoft is a member) would push for such laws just to prevent "software piracy", and of course Hollywood would push for the laws to prevent "media piracy". That would in turn raise demand for mainstream OSes, because those would be the only ones that could stream movies and music. So when I suggest that the government would mandate it, that's in the context of a political climate where big businesses often write and lobby for laws which make it difficult for smaller competitors to challenge them. Whether Microsoft does that lobbying publicly, or privately, or via proxies, is somewhat immaterial to my argument.