I came across a quote from Alan Kay that came to mind when reading this:

> It’s worth pondering this. One argument against mine, is that “people need and want ‘appliances’ “ that only have one function.

This was in response to a more widely known quote of his:

> Simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible.

The only people who need specialized personal workstations are people working with large data. But, even with that the cost of the cloud has made workstations a poor investment in most cases. I don't think I'd agree with the notion that the demise of the workstation is "untimely." Maybe in a retro, nostalgic or, cultural way it's demise is upsetting but, in the larger pragmatic sense it's quite welcomed. Workstations always felt like a stop-gap solution for what we have now.