Back in 2017, after Apple announced the last pre-retina MacBook Air hardware refresh, Jacob Kastrenakes wrote the following for The Verge (emphasis added):

Not only does the super-slim MacBook start at $1,299, but so does the new MacBook Pro. And since the MacBook Air, still selling for $999, is woefully out of date — with a low-res screen that’ll look bad next to any current smartphone — $1,299 is essentially the starting price for a modern Mac laptop. So I’ve been wondering: if I want to spend $1,299 again, which one should I get?

So five years ago, the lack of a retina display was reason enough not to consider buying a MacBook Air. Fair enough — I would have said the same thing. But here we are in 2022 and non-retina pro-priced PC laptop displays are “nice”.