I didn't say there is "no difference" between these machines, that's ridiculous. My point is that Apples system-on-a-chip architecture, while giving big performance and efficiency gains, comes with a trade-off. That trade off is availability and pricing of RAM configurations. That 8GB or 16 works for you is great, but it doesn't work for every use case.

With 8gb?

I am aware that macOS is better than Linux with low memory conditions but I can’t imagine this, granted I have an older (2020) MacBook Pro, but I have ran out of ram and I specifically opted for the 32G one.

As in: I got the infamous “your system is low on memory” dialog.

All it took was teams, slack, chrome, MS word, docker (vm with default config) and 2 1G VMs invirtualbox

Wait---you're using VirtualBox on a Mac with an M1 chip? I didn't think that was possible (and if it is, I'll be grateful if you can tell me how).

The MacBook Airs have 8GB unless you build to order. My point is that Apples system-on-a-chip architecture, while giving big performance and efficiency gains, comes with a trade-off. That trade off is availability and pricing of RAM configurations.