How does 40 NVMEs fit in one PCIe bus?
Or are they connected over another interface thar is slower, then into PCIe.
Can someone knowledgeable answer this?

So let me get this straight. They sold data they shouldn't have for $20 million. They settled for $12.75 million. So they made a profit of $7.25 million. So what exactly is the incentive for them not to do this again? They don't make as much as they want if they get caught, but they still make money. This is how you encourage companies to do this, not discourage them.

AI-Native you say?
Oh, I see ... you mean hype-compliant.

Mythbusters did an experiment to disprove this. I'd say they are about as credible as these researchers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Also reminiscent of blockchain hype ...

Remember when a tea company added blockchain to its name and its stock soared 200%?

Later, they were investigated and charged by the SEC.

My guess is that the issue is the chance of the line being tangled in something. If there are trees around, a gust of wind could easily blow the line (with or without package) into the trees. You also have to leave the package somewhere out in the open as there would be no way to put in on a covered porch.

This is definitely a sign of the current bubble (LLMs).

And some of us do remember ...

For example when a tea company added blockchain to its name and its stock soared 200%?

Later, it was investigated and charged by the SEC.

Just like Pets.com in the dotcom era.

Increasing UDP throughput simply by inlining a function is a big deal!

And nothing of value was lost.

2. Those who don't give a damn about ethics at all and make no bones about it.
...
People who don't give a damn aren't really a problem either, since in a world populated by mostly good people, they'll ultimately be shamed and marginalized or end up in jail.

Or, they get elected president, twice ... destroy the economy, country's reputation, and start a war they can't end.

Totally agree with you ...

But it is not only libraries, there are other factors at play, me thinks ...

Developers don't have a culture of being economical with resources.
It is not taught, nor do first jobs they get care about those aspects.
For example, don't get me started on the infinity scroll which eats up RAM like crazy, rather than a pager of Next/Previous page.

There are also the layers involved, specially with web development.
It used to be HTML only, then CSS was added, then Javascript was added for certain smarts.
Then whole frameworks were invented and used for JS.

Anyway, there is no easy way out of this.
Maybe RAM shortage will compel developers to use RAM sparingly?
Nah, that is a pipe dream ... unfortunately.

But how much of that is paying for the case and power supply?

Didn't get what you meant there.

NUCs usually come with a case and a power supply.

I bought one a couple of months and it came with those, as well as RAM.
It didn't have any storage though, because it was from a corporation, and didn't want to risk selling SSDs with data on them.

Raspberry Pi's are the right fit in specific cases.
For example, you need to interface the GPIO pins to some devices.

But there are issues with it in other cases.
For example, the cost rises as you include accessories, such as a case, fan, various hats, and so on.

If you just need a low(er) power x86 platform to run a stock Linux distro, then plain mini PCs or older models of Intel/ASUS NUCs will fit the bill nicely.

You can get a 2018 NUC for ~ $100 or so.

They already come with M.2 slots, and some have SATA connectors.
They have SODIMM slots so you can upgrade RAM later if you want.

Running Xubuntu or Ubuntu Server is a breeze.

Sadly while your logic sounds spot on, the reality is, that TV still does ACR (basically hashing each screen sometimes multiple times a second) and builds one hell of an accurate profile of everything you watch. Even if the source is HDMI. And it's still sold.

Food for thought, that HDMI cable to your dedicated device, it likely supports networking, so the TV has a path to the internet even if you don't connect an ethernet cable directly to it, or add in your wifi creds.