This happen in other markets just fine. One market that jumps to mind is oscilloscopes, you will basically have a single piece of hardware spanning multiple skus where features are disabled via software/hardware (sometimes the CPU is just reading resistor values or jumpers to determine which model it is and therefore which features it has enabled), one notable vendor jumps to mind is Hantek. You can take a 70Mhz scope and opening it up to unlock it to 250mhz. (The same can be done in a number of Rigol scopes iirc)

(EDIT: Note, obv you are still limited by the hardware of the scope, you are prob not going to be able to take a 70Mhz scope and unlock it into a 1Ghz scope - my point is that you will have a product range of X to Z and more often than not in that range the hardware inside that product is the same but with some features disabled/crippled depending on the price point that model is sold at)

The idea is pretty simple, you keep costs lower because you are decreasing the number of PCBs you are designing and manufacturing, you are not buying x of one IC and Y of another ic, You get to release budget friendly models with less features, the higher cost models with more features help offset the R&D cost of those features and you have a upgrade path for the budget friendly models to self upgrade with a license upgrade (or a little tinkering under the hood if you are so inclinced - who would of thought people in need of scopes would tinker with said scopes ;-).)

My other theory as to why these simple unlock hacks are kept in these products is that instead of closing the "hacks" you leave them in, your EE customers that want gear at home will buy these lower end models, tinker with them to get the higher end features, and when it comes time for the company hiring the EE for company related projects will take on board the EE's preference for the brand they like and are used to using, but will just pay for the features as a) they don't want to waste their EE's time tinkering with gear B) don't want anyone from licensing come knocking on the door).

I was under the impression that most Intel chips (at least in the consumer space) in a series were pretty much the same silicon anyway just with features crippled because of price points, chips being binned as lower quality, etc.

So why not make a chip that has the kitchen sink thrown in, that can have features enabled if required by the customer after purchase? In todays chips the features are pretty much there already just crippled at the silicon level.

As long as the business practices don’t change and turn into a CPU as a Subscription model (or they just Jack their prices up of the base CPU and then expect you to pay even more for the features you need) I don’t see it being the end of the world, just giving users the ability to unlock functionality they didn’t foresee as a need at time of purchase.

But maybe I’m giving them more benefit of the doubt then they deserve. I guess time will tell on this one.

Edit number the second:

As it says in the article

> virtually none of Intel's customers need all the supported features, which is why Intel has to offer specialized models. There are 57 SKUs in the Xeon Scalable 3rd-Gen lineup, for example. But from a silicon point of view, all of Intel's Xeon Scalable CPUs are essentially the same in terms of the number of cores and clocks/TDP, with various functionalities merely disabled to create different models.

The locks already exist, they are "just" moving the locks to a place the customer can unlock them as required. Or atleast I hope that is all they are doing.