An unwanted hardware component usually does not affect what I can do with the NEXT device. An OS forced on me by a de-facto monopolist can.
In fact it already does! When you call the support for a hardware problem the first thing they'll usually ask you to do is to restore or start the factory OS. If you refuse to ever start Windows due to whatever reasons you have a problem right here.

I almost was in this situation:
In 2010 I bought a Dell laptop which usually comes bundled with Windows. But I fought very hard to get it without it. A year later my graphics card died and the first thing the Dell support wanted me to do was to reinstall my original copy of Windows that came with the device.
It took some convincing, but after a while they realized that their DB entry was in fact correct and that I never received any Windows copy. Only then they were willing to deal with the problem regardless of the OS.

Of course you are free to go the easy way and buy all your computers with useless pre-installed Windows copies if that's too political for you.
But that is exactly the reason why I have to fight windmills.