> This black hole is apparently very good evidence that these early SMBHs did not form from star collapse but may have formed from gas clouds collapsing directly into black holes.

I'm no expert, but wouldn't it make sense that in a non-uniform expanding explosion, the densely packed areas would behave the way density behaves? If the universe expands over time, isn't it denser near the beginning, allowing large scale density events to take place early in time? Couldn't a dense universe have allowed supermassive stars to form that just immediately collapsed?

It's cool to discover it or anything else, but I'm not clear on why we should be surprised?