On an Air, 8gb is the bare minimum that is realistically viable, for people who don’t do anything than browse the web

Thanks to the modern web, web browsing of one of the most RAM intensive tasks. Add a few Electron based apps and you're in hell.

Practically all of us know that the difference between these memory modules is pocket change, when mass produced like this, but for those extra couple cents, they get an extra 100$ from you

This is called capturing consumer surplus through segmentation. There's a pretty good explanation of it here.

The long and short of it is that some people are just perfectly fine spending more money on a macbook, and apple wants to give them a good enough excuse to do so.

I think it's mostly to have a price tag that doesn't immediately turn off people.

Yes, Apple is expensive in general, however people are generally fine with paying a premium. But if they'd come at you immediately with the full price for a reasonably specced machine, it would still turn many people away.

Instead they fix you on with a high, but still somewhat reasonable price and then upsell you in steps for everything. Like sure you could buy the 128gb iPhone pro, but then the storage will fill up fast with photos and videos. A great camera system being the huge selling point of the device.

On a side note I actually find the 256gb non upgradeable/replaceable ssd much more egregious, than the 8gb RAM.

As you say, for people with basic needs (and that is actually a quite large group), it is enough for daily use. Those people just browse the Web, view photos and write short documents in word. However especially if they have an iPhone and take lots of picture/videos, they will still fill up that storage fast. And then it gets really frustrating, unless you maybe pay even more to outsource everything to the icloud and pay monthly.

"With an apple silicon architecture, 8gb is like 16gb" -some stupid apple flunkey

Your assumption is based and factual

removing features is ~~innovation~~ courage.

It's a strategy to push customers toward the more expensive models. Their markup is massive, it's a blatant profit move.

My 13 year old MB has 16GB.

It came with 8GB and at some point I spent $50 or so to add another 8GB.

You know, back when upgrading Macs was a thing.

I’m honestly even thinking to buy a €200 android device to get used to the system.

Don't. Unless it's a slightly older Pixel A-series 2nd hand phone. Manufacturers of cheap Android phones skimp on everything and add bullshit crapware. Shit like that is the cause of many "Android sucks" comments.

I’m honestly even thinking to buy a €200 android device to get used to the system.

Don't do that, I can tell you from experience: Most of them suck, especially cheap Chinese ones.

The Google Pixel 7a is currently $350 and it will get cheaper when the 8a comes out. The 7a will get security updates until May 2028. If you want to get into mobile device privacy/security, a Pixel is an excellent choice. You can install an alternative operating system called GrapheneOS, it's a much more private and secure, improved version of Android. It doesn't include Google spyware and thus also improves battery life. It also extends your feature updates, by default the 7a would only get feature updates until 2026, but GrapheneOS provides Android feature updates as long as the device gets security updates. That would mean 2 additional years of Android feature updates. I highly recommend it!

It's weird how you draw the line at MacBooks for being overpriced, considering every other apple device you name dropped is equally overpriced.

I dunno, I’ve got a base model M1 and it feels like one of the best laptops I’ve owned. Overpriced is exactly what I feel it isn’t. $1000 for a decent laptop is not bad. Nothing below that price has a good trackpad.

The best way to have a MacBook is your employer giving you one, but trust me you kinda wont want to work on regular notebooks after experiencing macbook.

Except it's cost 3x more than average 8GB ram laptops

Given how terrible Teams performes, I'd dread to have merely 8GB to run it on.

Yup. My MacBook Pro for work has 16GB and I keep running out of RAM. I can't fathom being limited to 8GB...

I guess it works for basic browsing and whatnot, but for any kind of professional work, you're going to have a bad time.

I built a gaming PC for the first time since ~20 years ago. Decided to dump 64gb into it for no good reason other than ram is cheap and I figured I might as well.

8gb...jeebus.