For Apple computers with a T2 chip encryption actually is on by default and is always enabled at the hardware level. However, enabling filevault adds additional security around the master encryption key.

Perhaps a future TPM standard will support dedicated encryption throughput in the future instead of just RNG and key generation, but until that happens I can’t see computer manufacturers turning encryption on by default (especially because the bitlocker user experience for non-power users is still pretty awful)

On that note, being able to use TPM / UEFI features is getting more difficult for open source users, so actually taking advantage of the security hardware on your machine requires more work: github.com/Foxboron/sbctl/issues/85