I don't think it was ever about power but rather value. £1300 on any laptop is a significant wodge for anyone and if that user discovers that the machine doesn't perform as expected they are going to feel short-changed, especially if as mentioned in the podcast it takes 10 chrome tabs to slow it down and a £300 Chromebook manages that without breaking a sweat.

It also feeds the 'Apple makes them slow so you spend more' trolls which isn't helpful. It may be that Apple's internal tests used a different SSD and it was changed in the supply chain but we will never know. What I'd like to know is it still significantly faster than an old Intel model?

This might not bother the users of the M2 Air that much because you can probably look past performance issues because the chassis is new and shiny and will the average user have anything more than Music, Twitteriffic and Safari open at once? I use my Macbook Air for a lot but its not often more than one heavy task. If Im encoding video I'll leave it alone and go fire up the Xbox or make tea.

The longer term issue is if Apple start to put the same M2/8GB/Single SSD config in the iMac and Mini base models, effectively crippling all their cheapest machines and giving themselves another butterfly keyboard mountain to climb.