I've been a user of low end Macs for a long time now, and it's sometimes really hard to get a capable Mac for $999. For a while it was just the aging pre retina Air... which were pretty good machine but started to get outshined. And before that the polycarbonate MacBook were good, but still low end consumer with performance that would be eclipsed in a few years. Then Apple introduced the 2 port MacBook Pro... which was still kind of slow and expensive. Then the retina Air came out and was kind of slow and expensive.
This Air, even close to being two years old, is still really fast and a good value. It's leagues better value than any of those old Macs, the old Airs, the white polycarbonate and all the 13" MacBook Pros. You always have to look at what you are getting, and not be too concerned about what the newest stuff is. The M1 Pro and M2 Macs are fancier and faster... but does the cheaper one still do what you need it to do and have high quality features? I still think that's true for the M1 Air.
You get all the benefits of a modern Mac... with the only downside being lack of ports. The screen is excellent with good colors and a nice Retina setup, the speakers are very good, the performance is still amazing, it's small and portable, the graphics are still best in thin and light laptops, and it's still great as a fan-less computer. It can do so many things that a $999 Mac from 2+ years ago could only dream of.
We really need new software, or things we what to do with these computers, before the M1 Air stops being a fast computer.