[pkilgore]

8 GB is more than enough for many workloads, especially web development, academics, and remote development (and for that matter, non-development workloads).

Why not increase the potential pool of buyers with specs that are acceptable to them?

Also, M1 Architecture over Intel taps into solid state storage speeds to aggressively use swap storage when mem pressure exists. It really seems to be smooth, I've not noticed much hiccups. You might remember folks getting upset at this a year back because of the unexpectedly high SSD wear that results.

[peatmoss]

I have a 16GB M1 laptop and my colleague has an 8GB M1 laptop of the same model. Guess which one of us has to be selective about number of browser tabs and other apps that can be open. I don’t mean to be glib here, but I honestly don’t know how 8GB is enough. Add Docker to the mix, and 16 starts feeling a bit cramped.