There's a "law" somewhere that says if a vendor can segment a msrket easily it will. Hence academic software pricing, lunch menus, military discounts for movie tickets, and so on. If there's a simple way to segment a market it will always be profitable to do so (unless you somehow piss off one of your segments, I suppose).
Academic Software pricing and military/age discounts for tickets are direct price discrimination, where you can identify groups and prevent any arbitrage.
nVidia chips are a classic example of indirect price discrimination, where you can't prevent arbitrage. In tech this is common because both hardware and software have huge upfront costs (new fab design, coding and testing software), and it's cheaper to produce one and cripple than it is two different designs.
Without the "high- margin" fully unlocked segments, businesses might not pursue projects at all, or greatly reduce the scope and budget for R&D. It feels wrong because humans are much more wired to feel loss than unrealized gains, but it is the best solution for everyone.
