I think they just learned that capitulating to the bully only brings more bullying, not to mention pissing off your customers in the process.

She has a Clippy fetish?

I wonder if they do it on phones as well. Not everyone has a 256GB+ device, and 4GB would be a significant chunk on even that.

I’d like to use a aliexpress M.2 to RJ45 adapter on the Chromebook.

Make sure it is of the right kind. M.2 Wi-Fi slots are key E, M.2 SSD slots are key M (mostly) and cards made for 1 kind does not fit the other.

If the slot is for Wi-Fi it should have PCIe as that is what most Wi-Fi modules connect to. USB is used for Bluetooth mostly.