Yeah, 8GBs of RAM on Apple Silicon is more than enough for a base spec. I use my 8GB M1 Mac for 3D modeling/sculpting, 4K video editing, photo editing, and graphic design work. And with all of these things, it runs perfectly smooth, I’ve never experienced slowdowns, crashes, or seen the beach ball. And I’m also not nearly as tidy as I should be with tabs in Safari, I leave way too many open. All of this has never been an issue on the 8GB M1 for me, and I don’t see that any normal base spec user would really try to do more than I with it. People that want more RAM can always buy it. The base spec is that, a base spec. It doesn’t need to have gobs of extra RAM most people don’t want or need.
And despite the conspiracy theories being floated, all the data points toward most base spec customers being satisfied with 8GB of RAM. The 8GB base spec models are the most stocked in many stores, and Mac customer satisfaction hit record highs recently. If these conspiracy theories were remotely accurate (they aren’t), then we’d expect to see lower customer satisfaction, and less demand for the base models, so less proportional stock of them in stores. But that isn’t what we see…
Oh, and their supposed “planned obsolescence” is working so well that I have a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro which is still running fine… 🙄. Or maybe, there’s no planned obsolescence involved, and Macs last really well…