PC Gaming

it's one of those things where it does legitimately improve security, but for them to require it the way they did when almost no hardware at the time has it is pretty transparent.

Windows has been requiring hardware manufactures to include TPM 2.0 support since July 2016 , and Windows 11 was released in October 2021. The truth is Microsoft did everything they could to wait for people to get their hands on new hardware (5 years). Data shows that 83% of businesses were victims of firmware attacks, which is exactly what TPM helps with. Like it or not Microsoft’s primary customer are businesses, since they are the one who buy hundreds of licenses and pay for technical support. TPM requirement was not a surprise to anyone:

In fact, in the 55 pages of minumum specifications for Windows 10 hardware TPM is mentioned 60 times.

A quote from the link above.

there are plenty of other hardware requirements that could improve security if they arbitrarily decided to require them. they did this for the rain you describe, but have the plausible deniability of saying that it's for security.

What other hardware could they require to prevent firmware attacks?

"it's for security" - no it's not, as a for profit company chances are pretty good we can prove you don't actually give a shit about customer date if we look close enough at your practices. it's for profit.

As shown in the link above, it is for security. The profit comes when businesses keep buying Windows instead of moving to MacOS for lack of security in Windows machines.

"it's for the environment" - admirable thought, too bad that's not profitable. I don't believe you mr. for profit company.

Apple has shown you can have products made of recycled material while still being high quality and highly profitable. If you want environmentally friendly products you need to pay more, because like you said, it is not profitable to sell those products at the same price as before. So you either complain about price or about the environment, can’t have both.

"for the kids"- it you have ever tried to talk to a parent after the subject of their kids safety comes up you'll see why they always do for this in. it's the deepest, most primal, and least logical part of our brain. most parents become slovering fucking cavemen the second you disagree with whatever they've been programmed to believe will protect their kids. it's just too easy to manipulate people with. if you say you're great to protect kids I'm instantly skeptical and need a lot of proof.

The truth is most surveillance technologies will help protect the kids. This is a fact. If you gave the police access to everyone’s phone all the time kids would objectively be safer on the internet. Yes, this is used as an excuse to attack our privacy, but it does work, and there’s no reason to be skeptical. Anyways, this is not on topic to windows TPM.