A wider screen on a laptop has the advantage of allowing a wider keyboard-- so smaller laptops (12"-13" and below) can have full size (or closer to full-size) keyboards, and larger laptops (15" or so) can fit things like a full numeric keypad (15-inch 16:10 doesn't even quite leave room for one, but 15-inch 16:9 does without inflating the screen bezel too much).

It's also probably not coincidental that a wider screen ratio allows the manufacturer to sell less screen (in terms of area or total pixels) at the same diagonal size.

Never thought about the diagonal thing. That's probably the best explanation.

I'm buying a new computer and keep seeing hints of crosvm (real containers!) for the Pixelbook. If they could even say 'yes, this will be released at some point' I would just buy one, but instead they stay tightlipped and I'll have to buy another MBP.

I bought my sister a surface laptop to use for school, and the very first thing she said was “How do I watch Netflix?”