How aggravating. This is why I left Windows. No marginal cost to them, the functionality is inside but turned off. I really have a hard time with that idea. It seems...well...just plain mean.

The cost is all the users who find the "magical guide to speed up your computer" online that involves registry hacks and such, and end up breaking it instead (and blaming Windows for it).

It seems like the intent is to end up in a similar place to iOS, with the entire system "curated" end to end. Which is not a bad place to be for many (most?) users. The problem with iOS model is that there's no way to escape it for power users, but it looks like it's not the case here - you can run 10 S if you want iOS-like experience, or you can run 10 Pro otherwise.

Even their main windows OS has/had virtualization disabled IIRC without getting their business pro or whatever edition (it's been more than a few years). It was simply a matter of trying to get you to pay more for cool stuff.

Well, I didn't.

I ran into this too, "want to play with docker, buy the pro upgrade license". It was one of the final straws for me.

Suspect it is to do with the intended education market. But I know what you mean.