Or I can buy an HP for $500, which is one tenth the price. And I’m already used to Windows 10.
If you are doing the work you would do on the iMac Pro, you would not be buying any $500 computer because your time would be far more valuable than what a $500 computer would waste for you. Rendering on that $500 computer would waste so much of your valuable time that the Apple iMac Pro would pay for itself 10 times over in the first month. Twenty-two Teraflops of computing power would have cost you a minimum of $32,000,000 less than twelve years ago. Virginia Tech's X-Serve Cluster of 2200 cores in 1100 Mac Pros turned in 12.25 Teraflops at a cost of a little over $8 million, including the cooling, racks to mount them, and the building to house them.
You won't get that kind of performance on your $500 HP. . . but if you have weeks to wait, it will eventually render that 3D image, ray trace those reflections from every surface as the light sources change, or calculate the airflow over a complex surface in time to meet the deadline required by the engineers.
However, if all you do is surf the internet and do email, then that HP and a good anti-virus/malware application is all you need.
For the people who will truly use the full capabilities of this machine, they will be rewarded. Looks like a great system.
For the other 90% or more of the purchasers, the axiom about a fool and his money applies.
I've got a generic brand Windows box that I bought 6 years ago for $300. Gets me on the web and lets me check email just fine. At some point, likely when they stop patching my OS, I'll need to upgrade. Until then, meh.
And I'm in IT. Most users are just like me. Email, MS Office, and surfing Facebook at lunch. These people don't need a top end machine, in fact, they likely could replace their computer with a phone/IPad, docking station and monitor.