That perfectly captures the need! Tempting to wait for the M3 MBA but I need to buy something now.
For the M2 MBA, your suggestion would be to get the base with 16gb RAM upgrade or stick with base?
The only thing you mention that would require upgrading the RAM is the video work, which you said you might do in the future. Even then you said it would be light. Not entirely sure what your definition of light is, and video work is not my area of expertise, but it seems even then 8GB might be acceptable.
Now here's the caveat. The moment you start wanting to do any of the things you mentioned (productivity, photo editing, video) at the same time that's when you'll need more than 8GB. We're reaching a point where 8GB is starting to affect performance of even basic productivity. It doesn't help that browser tabs can be absolute pigs when it comes to memory. If you're going to have Mail/Outlook, Work, Excel, Calendar all open at once, 8GB is enough unless we're talking about massive documents that are hundreds of pages with lots of images, tables, etc. Throw in maybe half a dozen browser tabs and I think you're still good. Going beyond that and I think you're starting to push the limits of 8GB.
Longevity is also something to consider. An 8GB machine should be good for 4-5 years I think unless something about your work changes. But if you want to keep it beyond 5 years then you should upgrade the RAM.
At the end of the day, the advice of "Buy as much RAM as you can possibly afford," is always good to follow. You can buy external SSDs in the future. You can't add RAM anymore.
