Air is too expensive. For such price you can buy much better Windows PC with 120 Hz screen. The ideal price for Air 16/512 is $600. This should be a starting point. 8/256, 8/512 are garbage and should be removed from the stock.
10 years from now, the Macbook Pro/Air will look exactly the same and lack features laptops 1/4 the price include. And still with the 8GB garbage in something this expensive.
Apple's M2-powered MacBook Air from 2022 is currently on sale at Amazon for 17% off, dropping it to its lowest price ever. This sale is for the base model (8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD), although the version with 512 GB of storage is only $30 more than its lowest-ever price.