I'm confused, while Apple has silly naming conventions for their operating system, the Macbook line doesn't have that at all. It's just the Macbook (and the Macbook Pro and the Macbook Air), Apple doesn't even give them different names or years.
Am I missing something that isn't incredibly straightforward about the Macbook naming?
Just that it isn't. The "(new) MacBook" (without any addition) most recently existed 2015-2019, and I personally found it very confusing, as it was thinner than a MacBook Air and with that breaking the previous expectations that were set up by the product line naming.
Placing all the blame on the naming of the MacBooks is probably overblown, but I feel like the individual lines of MacBooks have had a expectation/consistency problem for 10+ years now and throwing in the "new MacBook" into the mix for some time didn't help it.
I think the fact that they are in those high numbers already shows that they "stopped pretending like it is going to be an exciting brand new product every single year". The numbering there is pretty straightforward compared to e.g. the Macbook namings, or the convoluted naming of other brands with stacked variation signifiers, like the "Xiaomi 11 lite 5G NE".