In theory it isn’t mandatory, in practice you will see a lot of distros replacing it.

Frankly it is garbage anyway. We currently use it in my company and there’s no other option and I think teams is the worst conferencing app so far.

Exactly, this is how Microsoft operates. This time they gave an excuse they still allow plenty of other browsers (with the same engine). Google loves it, because it hurts Firefox and they can say they are not responsible for 3rd parties blocking sites.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is coordinated based on lessons learned with IE.