I don't think we ever were at a point in computing were you could buy a high-end (even entry level macbooks have high-end pricing) laptop with the same amount of ram as you could 10 years earlier.
8 GB were the standard back then.
10 years the ago the default for macbook pros was 4GB, and those started showing their age very quickly for what was not a small amount of money.
I'm not sure that's true:
Hmm, unexpected. I was quite sure my partner's 2015 mbp was sitting at 4gb, but you win this one! ;)
Edit: I confirmed that I was indeed wrong, but the payoff isn't great anyway because that just means that yes in fact they've kept the exact same ram floor for 10 years. Insane.
It’s rather an issue of selling deliberately underpowered hardware for no good reason other than to sell actually up-to-date versions for a difference in price that has no relation to the actual availability or price of the components. The sheer disconnect from any kind of reality offends me as a person whose job and alleged primary competency is to recognize reality then bend it to one’s will.