Is this a way to stay exclussive with Nvidia or just lazy or non caring programmers?
Not a case of"lazy programmers" LOL!!.
If you do not have a NVIDIA GPU (with the updated drivers)
you can only render(slowly) on your CPU with Iray
Iray is a brute force path tracer that
Does not even support motion Blur or the Iclone particle system.
Iray only exists to sell Nvidia Graphic cards,
it is a "loss leader" product that was originally created for the Architectural/product visualization, still render industry.
And if all you are going to render are stills you may as well use Daz studio and not have to pay $149 Dollars just for Iray
Even many people here with mega GPU systems/RTX cards etc
Avoid Iray for animation rendering because it is not practical.
I dont have NVidia hardware (or a GPU at all)
This is why I use the CC3 export tools to render in Blenders EEVEE with my intel UHD graphics.