Even as Minecraft moves into 1.20 (Trails & Tales) and 1.21 (Update Aquatic Part 2), version 1.16 remains a "Goldilocks" version. It is new enough to have Netherite and Striders, but old enough to run on low-end laptops (including Chromebooks via TechBigs). It also has the largest library of mod compatibility, as many modders stopped updating after 1.16.5 due to internal code changes in 1.17 (The Caves cliff height limit change).