It feels similar to unlocking software because despite the different legal structure (ownership vs. license), the source of the difference similar, as you point

It feels similar to unlocking software because despite the different legal structure (ownership vs. license), the source of the difference similar, as you point out: You have been given a purposefully broken (i.e. effort was expended to reduce its usefulness) product. One would be tempted to make the argument of costing the company sale of an otherwise higher priced product, the method of fixing this would involve having entirely separate design and/or fabrication for the two tiers of components. This is far costlier than the price gap afforded to a handful of technical and risk-taking customers. Unless the ease of the transition is reduced to "Flip the big red switch from 'Fast' to 'Faster'!" then this sort of missed sale amounts to a rounding error for Nvidia, and certainly does not even match the cost that would be necessary to protect against it.