>I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool
If you broaden the comparison (only a little bit) it looks suspiciously like employees being forced to train their own replacement (be that other employees, or factory automation), a regular occurrence.
Yeah this is the thing I think many don't want to see. Imagine a bunch of farm laborers being trained to use a tractor/reaper early on its development. Certainly they'd think it's cool and convenient, because it is. But if it works out, then most of those farm laborers are now obsolete, and a handful of them can now replace the rest. And indeed this is why agricultural employment went from the majority of jobs to a footnote.