I gifted a family member an 8/256 M1 Air in late 2023. I was confident that this laptop could still last 5-6 years for this person who uses for basic office tasks.
I used an M1 Air 8/256 as a dev for 1 year when it first came out and before the M1 Pro/Max released. It was adequate. If I can do that, 8/256 can perform for many years as a basic office machine.
For me it absolutely doesn't, that's why 16 GB is the bare minimum for me. But setting me aside, my fiancee only does basic office work and web browsing (elementary school teacher) and she had to upgrade to 16 GB too since 8 GB wasn't cutting it with more than a couple dozen browser tabs open.
I read this post I initially on a 10+ year old MacBook air with 4gb ram hooked up to a 30" monitor. It has its limitations but manages fine for basic office/web work.
MacOS got really good at doing memory management roughly around 7 years ago which helps.
That’s the use case for a large majority of the population.
I even do all of that with a 2015 MacBook Air, and it doesn’t even have M1.