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.
There are way more android and apple devices online than PCs. No ISP would do anything for PCs alone and if they did, I could easily turn my PC into an "Android Tablet". So Microsoft would have to get Google and Apple behind the same plan and then phase out all existing devices and force all ISPs to implement this. This would yield a huge public outrage because the first states to follow would be China et. al., where remote attestation would enforce you to install the latest government, ahem, upgrade, to your device. Of course the US government and various European nations would very much like to follow suit, but they would be slower than China and then look like they follow the authoritarian path a bit too closely.
Remote attestation will be sold to streaming providers so they can extend their DRM to cover unpatched systems. Maybe multiplayer games will follow. This ain't gonna happen at the ISP level.