MSSQL will lock on Reads by default, and can(will) escalate locks to entire pages for reads.
Making MVCC Mode 'Opt In' requires enabling Snapshot Isolation, and making it default requires another change. It's also worth noting the way MSSQL does MVCC is far more TempDB/Memory hungry than Oracle/Postgres (due to the nature of using snapshots). I've been in more than one shop that did not want to enable it due to the memory requirements.
Honestly I got more of a '1 life is a tragedy, 1million lives is a statistic' vibe from GP