You’re correct that the file size of audio stopped being relevant many years ago. In a world of Netflix 4K streaming, even the most inefficient audio formats don’t move the needle.
(If it did matter, which it doesn’t, it occurs to me that you could even create a 24 bit file that only contains 18 significant bits [dithered to 18 bits then padded to 24] in such a way that the space was reclaimed by ALAC or FLAC encoding.)
