It only ever was present because Sony wanted to cheat EU import tariffs - by allowing other operating systems, it could be imported under the lower general-purpose computer rate.
IMHO, removal of this feature should have triggered Sony having to pay back the amount of taxes cheated.
I recall they lost a bit on selling the consoles to the USAF that were used as computer cluster. (The consoles afaik sell/sold? at below cost and rely on games to make up the extra cash) So they lose money on consoles that aren't having games bought.
IMHO, removal of this feature should have triggered Sony having to pay back the amount of taxes cheated.