> which unfortunately stifles other open alternatives by the virtue of being "good enough".

In China at least, the hardware companies are smart enough to not put all eggs in the RISC-V basket, and are pursuing other open/non-encumbered ISAs.

They have LoongArch which is a post-MIPS architecture with elements from RISC-V. Also they have ShenWei/SunWay which is post-Alpha.

And they of course have Phytium (ARM), HeXin (OpenPower), and Zhaoxin (x86).