I felt similar anger for similar decisions. GPUs are complex pieces of hardware present in so much of our world but we are reliant on the manufacture to provide a driver to control the hardware. An open(source) driver is nice but doesn't allow you to do anything not documented, and open hardware is an nonstarter for capitalism with our weak IP laws(but hey let's protect a drawn mouse indefinitely.)

Nvidia has done things like this before and it can get worse. Imagine a future GPU where only authorized drivers have access to certain features, and I'm not talking about the difference between consumer and workstation GPUs unlocking a few obscure openGL functions in the drivers.