I wish Apple disclosed individual product line sales because I think they would show that I am right and you are wrong ;-)
I don't think the Mac mini is the workhorse or a strong seller of the Mac lineup; it's just a convenient little niche to keep around.
Regarding performance advantage: When Apple was on Intel, Intel's SKUs had way more of a wattage/thermal difference between their product lines: The 16" MacBook Pro was sucking down 100 watts while my current 14" MacBook Pro can stay charged on an iPhone charging brick.
So when you look at a Mac Mini at $600 having a handful of extra cores over a $1000 MacBook Air, it's like, "yes, it's technically faster," but not "I'm going to be able to enable new workflows with this additional performance."
If you can play a game or edit a video or browse the web on a Mac mini, you'll be able to do the exact same thing on a MacBook Air and, as a generally subjective human, not notice any difference in capability or speed. This was not the case when Apple was selling 12" MacBooks that felt miserably slow editing a Word document new out of the box.
Regarding storage: That 8TB upgrade is only available on the top-tier Mac mini, and choosing it brings you to $3699. Choose the lowest tier MacBook Pro 14" with that same storage upgrade and for $4399 and you get the exact same processor with the exact same performance (not thermally limited), and on top of that you get a 120Hz mini-LED high DPI display, keyboard, trackpad, webcam, battery, and all the convenience that a laptop gets you.
What person with nearly $4000 to spend on a system is going to choose not to have a laptop for less than 20% more money when they don't even lose even a single digit percent of performance? It's not like the Mac mini is internally expandable or upgradable at all.
I don't think the Mac mini is the workhorse or a strong seller of the Mac lineup; it's just a convenient little niche to keep around.
Regarding performance advantage: When Apple was on Intel, Intel's SKUs had way more of a wattage/thermal difference between their product lines: The 16" MacBook Pro was sucking down 100 watts while my current 14" MacBook Pro can stay charged on an iPhone charging brick.
So when you look at a Mac Mini at $600 having a handful of extra cores over a $1000 MacBook Air, it's like, "yes, it's technically faster," but not "I'm going to be able to enable new workflows with this additional performance."
If you can play a game or edit a video or browse the web on a Mac mini, you'll be able to do the exact same thing on a MacBook Air and, as a generally subjective human, not notice any difference in capability or speed. This was not the case when Apple was selling 12" MacBooks that felt miserably slow editing a Word document new out of the box.
Regarding storage: That 8TB upgrade is only available on the top-tier Mac mini, and choosing it brings you to $3699. Choose the lowest tier MacBook Pro 14" with that same storage upgrade and for $4399 and you get the exact same processor with the exact same performance (not thermally limited), and on top of that you get a 120Hz mini-LED high DPI display, keyboard, trackpad, webcam, battery, and all the convenience that a laptop gets you.
What person with nearly $4000 to spend on a system is going to choose not to have a laptop for less than 20% more money when they don't even lose even a single digit percent of performance? It's not like the Mac mini is internally expandable or upgradable at all.