[selfhoster11]

Exactly my experience. My mind boggles at the thought that a Pi 1 was considered sufficient by anyone to be a desktop replacement with its tiny amount of RAM and processing power, even back then.

[Narishma]

I used a Pi 1 for a couple of years as my main desktop. It's definitely possible if you don't need bloated apps to do your work.

[selfhoster11]

Unfortunately the modern web is the perfect definition of bloated software, and you cannot really get stuff done without it. At minimum, it's needed for banking, government documents, and e-learning/collaboration platforms.