With that said, I can easily break past 16GB just running Windows and Chrome. 32GB is the new minimum if you want an enjoyable time; swapping into the page file even with PCIE4 and PCIE5 SSDs is still miserable.
Opening task manager and checking if windows is using more than 16gb is not a method to tell how much you should spec, my PC has 128gb ram with page file disabled and regularly sits at 40gb ram, because windows will allocate ram if there is ram to allocate.
I run 1000s of users on vdi 4/16 is more than enough for 99% of users.
I've since upgraded from that machine to a new build with 64GB of RAM simply because so many programs demand too much RAM now, and I hate even the mere thought of hitting swap.
I find that hard to believe since Chrome now sleeps tabs. I have Chrome with 60+ tabs open right now (yes, I'm one of those hoarders) and only eats 2,7GB RAM with a total system usage of ~9GB including all my other apps I have minimized right now (Signal, Torrent, Weather, PotPlayer, etc).
So I seriously doubt you're blowing past the 16GB just with Chrome alone.
That's BS. I ran Win 11 on a 8GB tablet PC just fine (although I wouldn't recommend it, get 16 instead).
I get it, we all hate windows, but can we please stick to reality and stop spreading FUD on HN?