I have been thinking about getting the ZenFone 10 as well. I have seen a lot of similar posts here and on various google searches. In the XDA forum for the phone there also a topic about not being able to unlock the bootloader/root, but there is a bit more info on the reasoning.

"A moderator in the Asus ZenTalk forum posted that they are working on a new release of the unlock tool and that it should be available in Q3 2023."

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/unlocking-the-bootloader.4607595/

So they will just be bricks in a few years

The problem with companies trying to stop this is the fact that there will be at least one person/team who will find a way to bypass this.

No amount of corporate software devs/engineers can stop the might of a determined team on the internet from achieving their goals when it comes to this kinda stuff.

Edit:

Don't know whether the bootloader locking is actually coming or not because I saw a different post saying it was a misunderstanding.

Tbh, it has been years since I last rooted a phone. There is hardly any reason left to do it tbh.