Oh that's right there was the model without the touchbar that had two ports and was a carryover from 2017, thanks for clarifying

There was a model even with the touchbar that only had two ports and one fan. the four port model got you more cores and two fans, quite a different computer internally despite sharing the same shape and 13" macbook pro label. very confusing for consumers.

Apparently confusing for me as well, because I'd never known of that device and I'm reasonably familiar with Apple's lineup.

Sure enough, it does exist: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP799

It’s fairly recent, to be fair.