Its not the first time Intel tried this. They did it in 2010 and 2011 with the Intel Upgrade Service except it focused on low-end consumer hardware instead of high-end server/workstation gear. I hope it fails here too.
Ok, you can finance the better chip instead. But why pay a bank instead of Intel for the consumption later?
Those deactivated cores are defective. Turning them off and selling a downgraded version makes sense.
This is the complete opposite. The chip works fine, it's just refusing to let you use what you want because you haven't paid Intel enough. Intel isn't really selling you a processor, they're allowing you to use one.