[leptons]

> but let's not forget that just being an employed SWE in the US easily places you in the top 1% globally.

And not being able to afford $30 as a developer for a decent amount of RAM puts you in the bottom 1% of developers globally. Yes, I made that up just as you are making up your own numbers. But as I explained, you don't need 128GB of RAM, you don't need 64GB of RAM, you don't even need 8GB of RAM, you can still develop with VSCode with 2GB of RAM. Nobody is handing out free RAM, so if you need more, save your rupees, or pennies, or euros, or whatever. The daily cost of it spread over time is miniscule for anyone on the planet, and you will get back the investment in saved time.