[freehorse]

You can probably go lower than $3000, I expect, ime, an M1 max with 64GB ram to have similar performance, and you can find such one used with less than $2000 or so probably.

In any case, I do not think that the range of people that have an M1/2/3/4 max macbook is that narrow, eg people who may do video editing or who benefit from having one of the fastest multicore laptops. It is handy to be able to do work with a machine you already may own for separate reasons, though it is definitely more to the side of a "pro device" than "basic consumer device".