If Apple truly requires this much space for the system, I honestly don’t see the point of having a 256GB device. I have no way of knowing what exactly is included in “System Data,” and I cannot modify or manage it. This is extremely frustrating and confusing for users. Can someone explain why this is necessary?
System Data Occupying Half of My Storage
You're in the wrong place to ask questions like these. support.apple.com would be more appropriate.
If you develop software in SwiftUI, you should know better. Every time you initiate an Xcode project, a new folder with a ton of data is created inside the DerivedData folder. If you duplicate an existing Xcode project, a duplicate after the Xcode project name will be created in the DrivedData folder. I occasionally go to the DerivedData folder and delete the folders that I no longer keep track of although my Mac mini gives me 512 GB of space.