We all know what is meant by “low/mid-tier”. This is pointless pedantry. Next someone is going to come by with the throwaway comment complaint about how OpenAI isn’t “open”.
Different people have different needs. I certainly need a MacBook Pro for my work, but I use next to no storage. I’ve never purchase beyond the minimum storage for an Apple computer. I did however up the processor on my current MacBook Pro.
Minimum 8GB RAM is more universally egregious but I’m not going to sit here and justify my own exception whilst discounting the possibility that 8GB works for others.
To be fair– While 8GB is annoying– I've bought the M1 MacBook Air when it came out and it's remarkably resilient. I've only had it freeze a few times due to too little RAM.
I've also been using many different programs. I just have to be a tad mindful about closing tabs (especially Google tabs) and programs.
$2K-3K is what my 3090/7800x3D sff desktop cost (depending on whether you include the price of the TV/peripherals I already own).