It's cheap for what it is. If you need a machine like this, then what else could you buy?

The Studio starts at $2k. If you are going to use it for the next 4 years, that's less than $1.50 / day. No trust fund required.

32 GB of unspecified frequency ram? 512 GB of unspecified speed and type ssd?

That's not a 2000 dollar configuration. For reference, that memory capacity costs 120 euros with 3200 Mhz

That 32 GB is not a typical stick. It’s a unified memory on SoC like how it is in smartphones. It affects performance significantly. You can read more about how they work and how they are different here:

https://www.howtogeek.com/701804/how-unified-memory-speeds-u...

Also it was mentioned, if I’m not mistaken, that the SSD has 7.5 Gb/s read, which is actually pretty good.

"unspecified frequency" is LPDDR5-6400. Better than anything else you can get for a reasonable price, and well into the experimental range with a 12th gen Intel cpu

>> 32 GB of unspecified frequency ram? 512 GB of unspecified speed and type ssd

Yes and it is all fun and games as long as it works. If something breaks, it is either terribly expensive to repair or unrepairable completely. Then it may not be as cheap long-term as it may look now... but the situation is probably worse with macbooks and their custom LCDs and keyboards than with this Studio.

Is it even possible to boot from USB on these M1 macs after the internal SSD fails?

I don't think you have worked in typical big city media companies...