Grad students :). More specifically, a professor with a research grant can afford to fund N grad students where N is inversely proportional to equipment cost.
The complaint is not about adding the capability to all chips. It's about smoothing out the step function between consumer machines and professional workstations.
The steps from consumer to professional seem pretty smooth. The higher end consumer machines cost more than the lower and professional machines. You can buy SkyLake Xeon processors from Newegg for as low as a couple hundred dollars.
The complaint is not about adding the capability to all chips. It's about smoothing out the step function between consumer machines and professional workstations.