The other peril of M1 ownership is the lack of alternative operating systems. The other way I reinstalled an older Macbook through "internet recovery" and it downloaded the version it was originally shipped with - macOS Mojave.
The UI was a breath of fresh air compared to Big Sur. Despite the screen being smaller than my M1 the information density was higher and it felt more like a tool than a toy. The lack of bullshit apps such as Apple TV, News & co and useless "widgets" was also good (for all of iTunes' flaws, it's still better than its modern successors), and it somehow felt faster despite being less than half the processing power of the M1.
I now wish I could run this on my M1 but alas I can't. At least with PCs and older Macs you could always switch to Windows or Linux, but with the M1 you're currently screwed - if Apple drops the ball or decides to take their OS in a direction you don't like you currently have no alternative (and all the "security" around locking out the user from their own machine doesn't bode well for alternative OSes).
The UI was a breath of fresh air compared to Big Sur. Despite the screen being smaller than my M1 the information density was higher and it felt more like a tool than a toy. The lack of bullshit apps such as Apple TV, News & co and useless "widgets" was also good (for all of iTunes' flaws, it's still better than its modern successors), and it somehow felt faster despite being less than half the processing power of the M1.
I now wish I could run this on my M1 but alas I can't. At least with PCs and older Macs you could always switch to Windows or Linux, but with the M1 you're currently screwed - if Apple drops the ball or decides to take their OS in a direction you don't like you currently have no alternative (and all the "security" around locking out the user from their own machine doesn't bode well for alternative OSes).