That $300 “normal” laptop was worse in almost every way and had significantly shorter service life - I still remember people making those comparisons claiming spinning metal drives were the same as SSDs. What you’re conflating is that there isn’t a single market segment but several, and Apple relies on used kit for the lower end price points. When you compare equivalent hardware capabilities, things have been roughly even since the switch to Intel, although it got tricky during the end of that when Intel struggled to ship low-power parts and you really had to decide how much you valued battery life.