I believe the 3080 will forever be remembered as the card that got 4K mainstream, and the 4080 will forever be remembered as the card that got ray tracing mainstream.
What do you guys think?
I think you have a really subjective definition/view of the term "mainstream..." or you're simply trolling.
Even tho, this days there's probably more people than ever whom are whiling to spend money on "High End" products... that's not to say High End = Mainstream (the norm - the most conventional choice). Would be nice tho - even an Utopia for PC enthusiasts (3080 and 4080 to be the norm - the most bought GPU by the majority), but the reality is quite far from that... even a sad reality.
As in, the nVidia marketing team - realized that 4090 would sell even at an obscene price (a guts feeling from the pandemic). Worst case scenario - if they struggled with sales - they'd just lower the prices. Yet, to their surprise (maybe even shock) - not only that didn't happen (barely sold any cards) - many resellers went out of stock (all gone - even reserved/prepurchased). And thus, that obscene price became the new standard - which in turn - impacted the upcoming 4080 and is sure to impact even future generations (unless AMD or Intel - manage to release better products sold for far less - compelling nVidia to do the same). The thing is... at first, the obscene boost of GPU prices was determined by the pandemic - "the chip shortage" to be more exact. And while/when that changed (when GPU chips became widly available again) - the lowering of GPU prices was to be expected. Which, did happen to a large extent - but the greed factor remained (while noticing that cards were still selling at such obscene prices - during pandemic) - and thus, were aiming to capitalize on that - with their High End (Expensive) & High End+ (overly expensive) products.
That being said... even if the pandemic didn't happen - even if 3080 and 4080 were still sold at similar price with GTX 1080 (600$ - 700$ or around 800$ - while taking the inflation into account) - this cards would still be deemed as High End (to expensive - for the mainstream class). Tho, above events did happen and thus... RTX 4080 are sold at close to 2x (cheapest) and up-to 3x the price of a GTX 1080. As mentioned in the parenthesis - there's also a 20% inflation between 2016 and 2022. But that's still far from enough - to explain this madness. And that's just it... while spending 700$ on a Video Card back in 2016 - the mainstream class would raise their eyebrows at you, so... it kinda made sens to keep the purchase of a 4090/4080 a secret (same way/reason one would keep their earnings a secret). Yet, we don't live in a world with common sense - so many of those who afforded this penis enlargements - couldn't help but share it on social media platforms. After all - buying a RTX 4090 at that price or even RTX 4080 - is rarely about the practical side (what it can actually do for you - in terms of performance) - and more about the bragging aspect (look how many points i get in this bench tool - look how many FPS i get in this game i'll never actually play let alone finish).
If instead, you'd be talking about 3050 (even 3050 Ti) - then yes, that would make some sense in Mainstream terms. Even 3060 and 3060 TI - could be deemed mainstream "to some extent (among hardcore gamers or functional programmers)" - but far from the public at large. For this reason even 2K is not mainstream - let alone ray tracing. So hey, congrats on le trolling (i think you were well aware - that 4080 is a trigger term in 2022
).
where I live 4080 is 1500$ with tax. 
