However in 2021 I am not interested in a computer with less than 32GB ram. Sure, I could work around the limitations and close not in use programs/tabs to avoid going OOM, or using swap, but life is short and memory is cheap. I'd rather not have to worry about it.
I was similarly skeptical, but my old laptop died on me so I had to replace it. My M1 MacBook Pro is a better laptop for me as developer: my 16” 2019 MBP with 32GB of RAM I got from work has performance and memory issues (mostly too many open browser tabs) more frequently than my personal M1 laptop.
However in 2021 I am not interested in a computer with less than 32GB ram. Sure, I could work around the limitations and close not in use programs/tabs to avoid going OOM, or using swap, but life is short and memory is cheap. I'd rather not have to worry about it.