You have an Azure subscription that contains the virtual machines shown in the following table.

NO

NO

NO

1.) cannot perform write operation because following scope(s) are locked:

'subscriptions/xxxx/resourceGroups/xxx' Please remove the lock and try again.

2.) When creating a VM in a resource group with a Read Only lock an error is shown:

"The selected resource group is read only"

3.) Because of the read only lock virtual machines cannot be started nor stopped when the lock is added after the machine started. (not part of this use case, but still good to know.

The article referenced in the answer states different because that is scoped to blueprints.

In the Lock Resources pages is states the following regarding starting VMs:

"A ReadOnly lock on a resource group that contains a virtual machine prevents all users from starting or restarting the virtual machine. These operations require a POST request."

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/management/lock-resources