MSFS 2020 takes up hundreds of gigabytes and takes many hours to install, so this is likely to be an improvement.

Still prefer that over dependence on the cloud which is problematic on metered internet, slow connections or the day they decide to shut down their servers.

You could run 2020 locally, as long as you accept far reduced detail in the terrain. Assuming its also the case here?

MSFS 2020 also streams from cloud

Differently, though.

MSFS 2020 only streams terrain data from the cloud. It sounds like MSFS 2024 will stream the entire rendered video feed, similar to other cloud gaming services.

No video streaming.

"When users load into the sim, only the textures, meshes, and map data that they need will be downloaded to avoid unnecessary bandwidth and disk space usage. "

Where do you see that quote? It's certainly not in TFA.

Presumably this means one day it will just stop working when Microsoft decide to shut down the cloud backend.

How would you be able to run a game of this scale locally?

With a lot of storage. But also, they have streams of realtime-ish data for other planes, weather, ships, etc that feed into the simulated world.

Can't you disable that?