Base m1 was like 4-5 years ago. did we have that much ram with oldest macs too, 30 years ago? 4-5 years at same base RAM is incredibly cheap behaviour from Apple. Some phones are literally close to that RAM now.
At this point, I get the soldered on ram, for better or worse... I do wish at least storage was more approachable.
Exceptions apply to those running local LLMs.