But why would you buy them a Mac mini of all things?

I feel this website is a strange bubble. I use an underpowered laptop from 2013 for all my daily tasks including light photo, video and audio manipulation and I have no problems. Why does it always have to be about videogames, heavy creative work, multiple VMs or compiling gigantic codebases?

I feel like such a "basic user" would be better-served with an iPad or even a MacBook Air, unless they happen to have a monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers and webcam from, say, their old PC. Historically Apple has marketed the mini as a "gateway drug" to Macs. Cheap, and people can just reuse the peripherals they already have. Even now I wouldn't recommend an entry-level mini to that "email and web" crowd.

I'm a "pro", but don't do 8k video editing.

Still haven't maxed out the M1 mini. Except when Zoom or Discord start taking weird amounts of CPU for literally no reason :D

"many people" is as anecdotal as it gets. I don't know anybody who A) only needs 8GB/256GB and B) isn't better-served by an iPad or something similar. I think if anyone from Apple Marketing is reading this thread, they are laughing at how people are so instinctively buying into the entry-level Mac mini. The biggest value-add the $599 Mac mini has is that Apple can say Macs start at "just $599".

There will always be some non-zero number of people who either want or are genuinely best-served by something like the entry-level Mac mini, but that doesn't equate to it being a generally-good option.