Abandoning the common slot/sodimm design also lets them play with the channel configuration, which they'd need to do to achieve the bandwidth they claim for the Pro and Max chips.
I got the impression that this Mac Studio and their new 27" studio display form a replacement for the iMac and iMac Pro 27"
Overall I like the idea, because years after buying an iMac I still have a nice monitor, permanently attached to a (now) slow computer that I can't upgrade. With this approach I only need to replace the Mac itself as its age or my needs catch up with it.
We have the Future Fund but it's a joke compared to Norway's sovereign wealth fund.
There was plenty of tax money floating around back then but it was probably spent buying votes and posting budget surpluses so government could pat themselves on the back for being such good economic managers...
I'm kinda hoping for Thunderbolt PCIe cards that aren't tied to a specific brand or board. Would be nice to just throw an x4 or x8 card into an existing system to get one or two TB3 ports for stuff like external storage.
I'd take HFC over FTTN. Last time I lived with DSL I enjoyed the same kind of speeds you're getting and three visits from Telstra minions came out to "sorry, nothing we can do". I'm in no hurry to play that phone-line lottery again.