They were, and still are viable devices to some people. I only upgraded from a 128gb mbp and a 16gb iphone this year, after using them for 7 and 6 years respectively. Storage was never an issue with the laptop, and only became a problem with the iphone in the last couple of years.

Not for most. I used a 16 GB iPhone SE with only a handful of apps for a while, but the biggest problem was the NY Times app where I get my news. Its cache will grow without bound, and once it would get to ~2 GB every few weeks I'd have to uninstall and reinstall the app to delete the cache. (Later on they created an option in settings to delete the cache.)

I thought the 16 GB phone would work for me since I keep everything in the cloud -- no downloaded photos/music/nothing. Nope, and it was all because of app caches. I got so sick of having to uninstall and reinstall some app literally every week to clear its cache.

As someone with a 128 GB model, I manage just fine. This is not the same as selling 16 GB models 3 or so years ago (that was ridiculous). It’s only a “scam” if you’re someone that needs more space and thinks having a “just fine” lower tier is a scam.

There are two kinds of people who don't need a lot of disk space on their laptop:

1. Those with few big things - these people just don't need a lot of disk space

2. Those with lots of big things - no matter what you do your laptop can't hold everything, so you have a different place for the overflow anyway.

Personally, I think 128GB is crazy small, but it's been working fine for my wife for years, so what do I know?

It’s all down to your use case. I get by with a 16gb iPhone fine and have a 128gb MBA with have the space free.