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.
At some point, even ISPs might require remote attestation to allow you to connect your device to the internet. The IETF is already working on standards for the attestation of network devices[0][1].
I speculate that there will temporarily (perhaps similarly to iOS jailbreaking, which is not available at this time for the newest devices/iOS version[2]) be exploits allowing you fool the attestation by e.g. redirecting it to another device as the author suggests, but the end effect will be that vast majority of people will be effectively confined to a walled garden and even determined hobbyists will only be able to use their general computation capable devices to access all content (or even connect them to the internet) some of the time.
[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-rats-tpm-based-n...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IOS_jailbreaking&...