You are forgetting two things: - Apple. They charge premium for their hardware but don't make you pay to use extra features of the CPU/GPU. And a lot of common

You are forgetting two things: - Apple. They charge premium for their hardware but don't make you pay to use extra features of the CPU/GPU. And a lot of common folk already love the 8GB M1 Air and buy it in droves. It's going to last them 7 years easily, if not 10. - Most people hold on to their computers with a death grip until it can't boot anymore. I have a friend who just two months ago finally replaced a laptop with 1.5GB RAM and 180GB HDD. He used it for 13-15 years. Both of these mean that Intel and AMD can find themselves with 30% of their previous sales or less, if they try to force the CPU-features-as-a-service thing. They can only stretch the "you're not the target audience of these new machines" trope only to a certain extent. Common consumers getting indifferent and holding on to their existing tech is a real market force. Having to "hold on until the market adapts" might become too big a pill to swallow for Intel / AMD shareholders.