No Stupid Questions

Absolutely not, that would never happen. Why? Because there's a load of stuff that runs on Windows that is ancient and only exists as legacy software and never receives updates.

If anything, Windows is the last operating system that will have locked bootloaders, because if they do, there's gonna be some bank somewhere in the world suing them because their ancient counting software was originally made for Windows 3.0 back in the day and Microsoft has had to build their entire operating system around making sure that software continues to run.

They might have hardware requirements like the TPM chip, but they're never going to make it so you can only install software approved by them, because they've got over 40 years of software they'd need to approve before they can do that, and they won't.

That is already a thing in ARM laptops

Microsoft are smart enough to not piss off every giant corporation and destroy their entire business overnight, so you can count on it never being forced by them.

And Android phones will get a workaround to fuck over Google, the genie is out of the bottle. This shit will never happen to "all PCs"

Linux is quite well established now on home pc's and servers to the dismay of Microsoft and Apple. I hated Secureboot , built into UEFI, during startup by verifying the digital signatures of firmware, drivers, and the OS bootloader. Reading into Deep State Mass surveillance helps:

https://www.printernational.co.uk/timmann/history.htm#surveillance

https://youtu.be/HUEvRyemKSg might be relevant.

Turns out some people can predict the future if they pay attention

You're describing Secure Boot. It happened years ago.

And, btw, the Android thing also doesn't affect anyone without gapps. Chill out.

Nah, PCs are easier to install anything we want. Corps trying to lock out Linux would be like shooting themselves in the foot.

Phones are what they would like to get a tighter leash on, because it has become a device that nearly everyone buys more than PCs due to them being more usable and cheaper, and thus a bigger revenue channel.

I see Apple doing it, not because they are Apple but because they control the whole manufacturing process, so they wouldn’t need to negotiate with third parties. That’s what has happened in the mobile industry. In the PC side of things you would need to sit on a table: the CPU, OS, and probably GPU and MOBO manufacturers to negotiate, and knowing how greedy they all are, I don’t see it happening anytime soon. But hey, anything is possible in this dystopian society we live in.

I'm not an expert. But microsoft controls secure boot signing, right?

Microsoft is also involved in setting standards and influences manufacturers. I feel like the future where secure boot is the only option and were Microsoft holds the keys is likely.

Politicians and decision makers are not gonna save us. They like it when companies say it's for security and they can slap on "it's for the children".