> And yes, they are the same thing when you realize that the hardware is exactly the same
Quantum computers don't actually exist yet. It's a theoretical model. There's no hardware.
Even for the theoretical models, we have plenty of alternative models. The circuit model is the de-facto standard and a good thought framework, but there are real concerns about it maybe not to being the model to translate into actual hardware. (analogously, lambda calculus vs RTL) It will be interesting to see what alternative or new theoretical models pop up once the quantum computer's equivalent of the transistor surfaces.
Another thought to consider is since our computation latencies are currently restricted by sampling (clock) times, which is restricted by power (for heating reasons which are predicted by quantum), would the smarter bet be to pursue technology which uses exponentially less energy (analog) or technology which uses exponentially more energy with the same promised speed ups as the former (quantum)?