This is truly one of the most Taco Bells of all time.

They got in the most important feature too: random splash texts!

Having worked in the industry, less than you might think. Licensing cost generally sets a price floor. The single mindedness on maximizing revenue growth is driven by VC or stock market forces.

In the earlier days, licensing was used as a club to knock out a bunch of early competitors, but that quit being as useful once enough sets if companies with deep pockets came into the streaming industry.

If systemd-boot is doing its job optimally it displays nothing. Your bios should have a boot theme that segues into OS display takeover. (Coreboot supremacy ftw! :p I may have hacked BIOSes in the past to embed custom preboot logos)