Yes and no. Hardware does lock you in. Granted, I am happy with my 128gb of shared memory, but I am mildly concerned that it actually is more expensive now than when I bought mine. It does not bode well for the future; not when combined with recent WH admin moves on Anthropic and the reality that next batch of good models may require more than 128gb to run well.

edit: I am not dismissing local. I am one such user ( though I have subs too ), but one has to be clear eyed about the trade-offs.