I’d go as far as to say it’s similar to a landlord requiring a key to access the apartment your renting from them. Sure, they probably won’t abuse that power, most don’t, but the doesn’t mean they can’t.

The bigger picture to me is it’s pretty clear then internally, Microsoft views you as a “tenant” of THEIR OS. Not a purchaser. This is why they use the words “This PC” in replace of “My PC”.

Yes, I think we can absolutely say that companies are pushing for consumers to use the cloud instead of their own hardware, but in this context, I’d say it’s more egregious showing their mindset that you’re just renting their software from them.