Yeah, holy crap, what a joke it all is. The bitching and whining is beyond infantile, imho. It's a base model and comparing the base model across two different generations makes absolutely no sense. Arguably, all Apple did was reduce the bang-for-your-buck on the base model a little for this generation. Big deal; don't buy the base model if it's a problem. If, on the other hand, they issued the same machine—i.e., the base model M1— with one chip instead of two, that would be dodgy as hell. But considering the extra hassle of getting anything built and shipped these days I think it's pretty understandable that they're trying to boost margins where they can. And as you say, they wouldn't do this without considerable market knowledge and a good sense of who buys this machine and what matters to them.

It's all beyond absurd. Am I an Apple apologist? No, because this doesn't require an apology.