Comment by jwells89

Most of those other laptops have asymmetric bezels, which Apple was probably trying to avoid. They wanted thin bezels on all edges.

The extra room in the notch is likely there in case they want to change webcam parts to something larger, add Face ID, etc so they don’t also have to change the display panel and can continue to use existing stock.

Apple seems to like to try to avoid changing parts/tooling wherever possible and will go as far as to awkwardly keep using a chassis until stock of that part has been exhausted if necessary (see the 13” M1 Touch Bar MBP).