Modern desktop CPUs require blobs to boot (Intel FSP / AMD AGESA), Intel laptops (except Chromebooks) are especially bad because Boot Guard. Anything with Allwinner/Rockchip/NXP/Marvell SoCs is not nearly as closed.
How are chrome books more free? Don’t they require everything to be signed (with support for disabling user space checks at the cost of a loud threat from the firmware during start up?)
It's not a "loud threat", and it's only if you keep the stock coreboot. With a debug cable, you can flash anything you want, I have a fully custom coreboot+edk2 build with cleaned ME and no signature checks anywhere.