Hahah that I create an echo chamber must be a first. I tried to look this up too. Sadly I cannot seem to recall exactly where I read about this.

But it was in relation to a story about the M1 MacMini. Maybe one of my other articles has a link to it. But I forget which one.

I thought this had partly to do with the speed of the memory/memory controller in addition to the SSD.

But reflecting upon it that may be a far stretch. So I am inclined to believe you are right.

The lower memory need is also in part due to Big Sur requiring less memory as far as I understand.