My thinking is that Microsoft is basically the most influential in that, as they badly want to do their "stuff" while the laptop is not in use. Their "stuff" requires network connectivity and seemingly they believe they can do updates, or any other "optimizations" when the laptop is in "modern sleep" mode.

I'm surprised this required implementing a whole new sleep mode. Since it seems to be mostly used for async background tasks, why not configure the RTC to wake the laptop every hour or so (I think every laptop in existence already supports suspend with timeout) and go back to suspend if no tasks need to be done?

Microsoft wants laptops/PCs to mimic a phone and remain always connected to the internet and processing real-time emails/VOIP calls. It's all explained here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...