I think CPU designers are getting too much flak for this. The side effects of speculative execution has been around ever since their introduction. A compounding problem is how abstract software has become, it has made assumptions on the underlying execution model without a deeper understanding of its sublteties (sandboxing, containers, etc trying to guarantee process isolation). It’s the Law of Leaky Abstractions [0] at work. What is alarming is how long it has taken for us to collectively realize this is a problem. Hats off to the folks for uncovering this blind spot to us.

[0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-a...