You can do MADI and Dante over thunderbolt or ethernet, and with the amount of compute UAD DSP days are definitely numbered (as shown by UA themselves now offering native). I don't see audio as a driver, given what I can do as a composer/producer on my laptop (m1pro)
For sure — the convergence towards Ethernet based AV protocols (esp. in broadcast) seems like it has a promising future (as we’ve seen with Dante), possibly for video too (SMPTE 2110, etc).
I'm not sure how you'd replace a decklink card with ethernet. The bandwidth just isn't there. Same issue with the TB ports, there's not nearly enough bandwidth for pro AV.
