Maybe an upside? These past years it feels like meaningful hardware spec bumps are on the horizon, like in the 90s, 2010s.

After all this churn subsides there is a chance entry level Windows laptops will start at 32GB RAM and maybe 8-12GB VRAM?

Which could end up being about 5-10-15 years of progress packed into 2-3-4.

I doubt. Microsoft would much rather sell you a thin client & a Windows 365 subscription, and Nvidia wants you to use GeForce now instead of buying a GPU.

The shortage is manufactured, I have my doubts it will "end" in a conventional sense. I'm more skeptical and feel like this is yet another consolidation of wealth and a means of taking away compute power from people, which prevents startup competition. This way the hyperscalers are the only ones that can offer any meaningful compute.

How do you figure? I'd think scarce and expensive RAM would push entry level models to smaller amounts of RAM.