What web stuff are you guys working on that 16GB didn’t cut it a few years ago? I’m not questioning your statement, it’s just completely different world from my day-to-day and I’m curious.
Probably building web stuff. This is how you end up with software that needs buckets of RAM. Because the dev never felt the pain. The classic “works on my machine”. Every dev I know works on the beefiest machines they can get their hands on.
Building web stuff doesn't require crazy hardware. Working on React and Vue apps, 16GB on a 6th gen Intel processor is fine today. Google Docs or Meet are more likely to cause issues.
In my case, the corporate MDM solution consumed so much resources that a 16GB MacBook was basically unusable for dev work (my personal Mac, also with 16GB in those days, was fine)
(Many) Windows admins have no idea what to do with Macs. It’s very easy for overzealous agent antivirus and firewall software to suck up CPU resources. Particularly when it is written by a company with no idea how to write Mac software, bought and installed by admins that don’t use Macs.
I had one set of “enterprise” software destroy the battery in my work Mac because of how it worked (and crashed). Meanwhile, my personal Mac was completely fine. Apple moving MDM related security software out of the kernel was the best thing they could have done for stability.