I don't watch this as closely as a lot of people, but my impression is that Intel has been rationing lanes as one way to segment their market, and AMD noticed they can easily mess with that strategy.
I spent significantly more for the CPU on a personal build a few years ago because I needed 40 lanes instead of 24. I'm all for AMD messing with it.
Intel segments the market across every single facet they can find and that won't outright keep people from buying their stuff. Hyperthreading, ECC memory (I ranted about how insane this is before, on numerous occasions), I/O options, GPU options, cache size, TDP, network and of course socket compatibility (where Intel figured out that not only can they sell you a new CPU with 0-5 % more performance every two years, but that they can also make you buy a new board to go with that just by adding or removing a couple ground pins).
And Intel got away with it because they had no competition. Monopolies are always very, very bad for consumers.
I spent significantly more for the CPU on a personal build a few years ago because I needed 40 lanes instead of 24. I'm all for AMD messing with it.