PC and laptop sales exploded during the pandemic. It's clear that these devices absolutely have their place and aren't going anywhere. I know it's popular to be contrarian, but sometimes the obvious answer actually is the answer. When you're facing double digit inflation in much of Europe and the Euro is falling against the USD, a 1650 Euro price tag for an entry level device simply isn't realistic.

PC were the only home computers that weren't closed down like 8 and 16 micros, and only due to IBM's failure to keep it closed.

What is happening are OEMs fighting to get the margins back from those days, and most people besides enthusiasts don't care.

I'd welcome that. The broader the market for PC's the more dumbed down they become. I'd be happy to see a bifurcation into dumb terminals for most people and workstations for the power users.

For media consumption (aside from games) I can see that happening, but with the sheer amount of _work_ that gets done on laptops and desktop I can't see them disappearing, or really even dwindling.

This is probably not far off. I regularly do software development on my Samsung phone using Samsung Dex plugged to a monitor. Sometimes even without a monitor, just a wireless keyboard and mouse.