I think this is contrary to what most would expect, and therefore "wrong" or at best annoying to work with. You can still include a payload with a 404 describi

I think this is contrary to what most would expect, and therefore "wrong" or at best annoying to work with. You can still include a payload with a 404 describing what is missing or why it wasn't found. If I see a 2xx status code, I assume the request succeeded. OP's way forces an additional check, more code, more potential for bugs.