MacBook Pro M1, multi display hub

The Apple standard for its built-in hardware-accelerated displays, makes them suitable for full-motion video for production/display of cinema-quality video with NO dropped frames, and NO dropouts or partial-blank scan lines due to memory under-runs or other issues. This requires a hardware rasterizer/display-generator for each fully-accelerated display, supported by Huge memory bandwidth to refresh each display 60 or more times a second. 

If you need more hardware-accelerated displays than the built-in and ONE External display, and an un-accelerated iPad if desired, you probably need a more capable computer.

if your work is largely Full motion Video, you will not likely be able to get by with less.

DisplayLink technology creates a "fake" display buffer in RAM, sends the data out over a slower interface to a stunt box with DisplayLink custom chips that put that data back onto a "legacy" interface. It is not a true "accelerated" display, and it can suffer from lagging. Just adding the DisplayLink Driver is not adequate to get a picture -- you need a DisplayLink "stunt-box" or a Dock that includes DisplayLink chips.

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It may be acceptable for a second display showing slow-to-change data such as computer program listings, stock quotes, or spreadsheets, but NOT for full motion Video, not for Video editing, and absolutely not for gaming. Mouse-tracking on that display can lag, and can make you feel queasy.

In a pinch, it may even play Internet videos (as one user put it) “without too many dropped frames".

If you are only doing program listings spreadsheets, stock quotes, and other slow to change data, DisplayLink can work for you, but requires you to make some strong compromises.

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It is really nice to know that you can use a DisplayLink display if you MUST have an additional display for some of the types of data I mentioned. But that is NOT the same as the computer supporting a second, built-in, Hardware-accelerated display.

These displays depend on DisplayLink software, and are at the whim of Apple when they make MacOS changes. There have been cases where MacOS changes completely disabled DisplayLink software, and it took some time for them to recover.

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I think the Big Surprise for a lot of Hub/Dock buyers is that they thought they were getting a "real" display, but actually got a DisplayLink "fake" Display. If you got what you expected in every case, I would not use such pejorative terms to describe DisplayLink.

The 13" M1 MacBook Pro only supports a single external display. It can be a very high resolution display, but there can be only one.

MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

There are no docks, hubs, or adapters which you can add to that Mac to get more first-class, hardware-supported video outputs. Many Thunderbolt docks can support up to two 4K monitors – but only when the Mac in question is able to provide two 4K signals. Your Mac can't and so these docks would only support using one display with it.

That said, it is possible to connect more than one display to that machine using a second-class workaround such as DisplayLink. This may come with major compromises. Note that just installing the DisplayLink drivers on your MBP won't get you the ability to drive any extra displays. The drivers support, and only work with, external "stunt boxes" that contain the DisplayLink "magic decoder ring" chip set.