Because in always-on mode, the refresh rate on the Pro drops down to a much lower refresh rate, as low as 1Hz.
Apple could've shipped an always on display mode with either OLED or a variable refresh-rate screen (or neither), but they only wanted to do it when they have both.
OLED so that black pixels are not illuminated and you save a good chunk of battery on that.
Variable RR so that you can drastically reduce that to save battery life as well.
Wasn't that the point? Apple loves to use such artificial segmentation to upsell their products
Where did Apple justified that?
Did Apple explicitly say something to that effect, or is it just the media or random comments who made this justification on their behalf?
In any case, besides concerns for "best performance/more battery" etc and enabling stuff were it's more well supported, Apple also puts different specs to different models for reasons of product differentation / price segmentation.
Also, this is completely off-topic to the original comment.
Next year iP15, both non-Pro and Pro have Oled, but again only Pro has always-on display.
Honestly that is the reason I am still on my Note9, and looking for another Android.
I understand what product segmentation is, and probably I am minority, but damn, it feels like subscription-based heated seats.