It isn't if you're on a laptop from 2021. But that vast majority of people aren't. Companies don't provision new computers to their employees every time a new computer comes out. At the companies I've worked for, the minimum refresh time is 3-5 years, depending on tax laws, and financial ability.
It's also not a big deal if the computer is only used for Zoom. Most people, whether office drones or developers, run many programs at once.
That "ram is cheap and plentiful" is also seriously not true for Mac laptops, which both caps how much one can expand them and also charges unreasonable rates for the additions they do allow
On 16GB I was constantly running out of memory at work. It’s not just 1GB it’s 1GB times all the other crap you need running.
Oh man, I'd love to live in the wonderland where you posted this comment from.
My laptop from 2019 also had 32g and was less than 2000 usd.
Obviously most people don't need that and I'm sympathetic to anyone having to run teams on some shitty IT-provided low cost laptop loaded with 7 different management spyware suites, but 16g-32g is not baller in a limo outrageous.