What is really sad is that I don't think the majority of Apple consumers really understand what this means for the Intel macs in the long run. I fear a number of people will buy them not realizing they have a very limited lifespan.
It may depend on one's definition of "limited": the Rosetta was first released with Mac OS 10.4 in 2005, [1][2] and was last available in Mac OS 10.6, which first released in 2010, [3] but whose last update was in 2011.
Six years of transitional support is not unreasonable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
New software will be cross-compiled with both instruction sets:
It's still as powerful as any of the current Apple laptops - progress has been slow these last 6 years.