I think what we see is basically showing the difference between the phone and laptop markets: people buy new phones to get better cameras because that’s one of the most common activities for a phone but the same is not true for laptops (or at least wasn’t previously), and there’s a much lower threshold where a mediocre camera prevents a sale. That lack of pressure means there isn’t much of a check on either cost cutting or pursuit of thinner/lighter designs.

Could just be cognitive bias though, since everyone complains about mac webcams all the time.