Maybe not demand that it be unlockable, but rather if Nvidia were to provide a paid upgrade path to unlock these features that would help. They would need some way to prevent the open source drivers from accessing the features, though.
The point being that they knowingly went down the e-fuse route to make sure nobody could unlock it later.
They probably learnt their lesson in the early 2000s, when users could do a bit of soldering and apply a patch to unlock more performance on cards that had been artificially throttled.
E-waste is mostly a fake concept. By the time a 4090 has outlived its usefulness for gaming it's also likely that no one wants it for AI (if they ever did).
Okdokie well not really going touch that bit, but just still want to point out that the way you have it written it sounds like the second claim is an argument for the first and it makes it a little confusing.