> The second category would be the reserve of such projects as physics simulations and render farms.
or smoothly scrolling, 60fps rendered canvas apps in browsers. I think there can't be an apartheid between untrusted and trusted, because developers would push the user to make their software trusted to get the max performance (and the users would just agree).
> developers would push the user to make their software trusted
I don't see it going this way. This is comparable to virtual memory and MMUs. When there is support in hardware, the speed benefit of not using it is negligible (as shown by the 1% difference demonstrated in the research).
When it is not needed, there is a benefit of not implementing it in hardware, and saving power and die area. For example, GPUs (traditionally) and crypto mining hardware do not employ MMUs.
or smoothly scrolling, 60fps rendered canvas apps in browsers. I think there can't be an apartheid between untrusted and trusted, because developers would push the user to make their software trusted to get the max performance (and the users would just agree).