Yes and no. 512 gb of memory is not worth $8000, but that's basically the premium you pay with apple. You can technically bypass this and save a few thousand, but then you fall backwards in performance and it gets way more technical (buying 3-4 year old servers online). And you can't technically upgrade macs, but there are places online that you can send them into and have them swap some things for you (it requires soldering).
I personally haven't looked into it, but there might be a chance you can buy the cheapest version of that mac, and then send it in and have the ram/storage maxed out for a lot cheaper than what apple charges.
Yes and no. 512 gb of memory is not worth $8000, but that's basically the premium you pay with apple. You can technically bypass this and save a few thousand, but then you fall backwards in performance and it gets way more technical (buying 3-4 year old servers online). And you can't technically upgrade macs, but there are places online that you can send them into and have them swap some things for you (it requires soldering).
I personally haven't looked into it, but there might be a chance you can buy the cheapest version of that mac, and then send it in and have the ram/storage maxed out for a lot cheaper than what apple charges.