even a 5k spend on cloud compute is not going out outlast the expected 3-5 yrs of use that a mac M3 would have.
What? This is a bizarre apples to oranges comparison. That 5k of compute can do things that aren’t possible on a Mac, like training a model.
Not many people use compute 24/7, so if your use cases can be ephemeral than spot/savings plans can be a good saving and using the cloud allows for opex rather than capex controls and taxes