The difference now is that Microsoft are saying they will only support machines which have these TPMs, and therefore they can credibly argue in a few years that the only secure PCs (and thus the only PCs that ISPs should allow online) are ones which can produce a remote attestation to prove they are running the latest OS updates (from an OS vendor that is approved by the government).
> If Microsoft wanted to prevent users from being able to run arbitrary applications, they could just ship an update to Windows that enforced signing requirements.
The trap hasn't been sprung yet, but those are the teeth, yes. Then say goodbye to Tor, E2E encrypted messengers, unapproved VPN apps, and bittorrent clients that don't check a Content ID database.
That's a reason to worry about Windows 11 requiring a TPM, rather than a reason to worry about Pluton specifically. But even so, I don't think it's an especially realistic one - outside extremely constrained setups, it's very hard to make remote attestation work in a way that gives you any meaningful guarantees (eg, simply forward the challenge on to a machine that is running the "approved" OS).
> The trap hasn't been sprung yet, but those are the teeth, yes.
Again, something they could just do today while zero people have Pluton.
If Microsoft want to lock-down the entire x86 market, they can do that now. They don't need to wait years for everyone to shift to new hardware that has Pluton in it.