How is blocking controllers anywhere close to rootkits? How is blocking controllers going to prevent hardware modifications to official controllers?

I'm just speaking to the idea of PC gaming has worked around cheaters, as if its a solved problem. PC gaming has such a massive cheating problem games are resorting to rootkit-like anticheat systems and yet there's still tons of cheaters out there. It is precisely because there's so much freedom out of the box on a PC that cheating flourishes there.

Blocking controllers isn't a rootkit, I agree. But acting like PC gaming has somehow solved cheating without needing restrictions on input devices and the like is disingenuous.

Blocking controllers makes the cost to have a hacked controller higher. It takes more effort to make a useful hacked controller, they have to source already built controllers and tear them apart, etc. Higher costs means it will be less likely to have people using hacked controllers. If you make the ownership of hacked controllers lower, you reduce the rate of cheating on the platform.

Using cheats on a lot of PC games can be free. If there was some magic that made the cost to install a cheat at least $100 do you think the rate of cheating will be lower, higher, or the same?

The goal isn't to eliminate all cheating, that's impossible. The goal is to reduce the rate of cheating.