And if said tradesperson doesn’t want their equipment to get wet in the rain they get a van instead.

Need? No. But hardware acceleration makes things faster and more efficient.

I can recommend this site for up-to-date and fairly neutral parts recommendations split by budget https://www.logicalincrements.com

I will always downvote articles with “slams” in the title. It is undoubtedly low effort clickbait. …unless someone actually gets a door slammed in their face.

Piracy is not a real solution to the problem. Microsoft allows these sorts of things to exist in the background because they would rather lose out on some sales than lose market share.

Unless you have the ability to root it, does it matter? It’s likely a completely custom, stripped down distro anyway.