The problem statement is of applications using up expensive RAM. Incidentally, expensive RAM is just one of the problems we face in the computing space. Forced obsolescence is another, when running hardware needs to be replaced because software is built for only newer CPUs.
You are right, but it reads (to me, could be just me) you mean newer specs which used to be true when I shipped software in the 70-90s; you mean faster machines / more memory right? Like installing a new version of software or OS and suddenly all memory is used, system is swapping and you did not ask for that but some obscure feature you didn't need needed to be shipped fast.
You need to stop and think about the problem. Nowadays RAM is expensive because many people now want to max out their computers with RAM to run LLMs and AI coding assistants. Today's software is still the same software that ran perfectly well half a dozen years ago. Cloudflare happens to operate a large global computer infrastructure, and it's scale is such that 1% gains are lauded as fantastic cost savers. But that's the bean counter's perspective, pointing out that they saved a bean.
This statement is quite honestly not true at all. Just take the two largest OS from 6 years ago and compare resource usage between them and you will find you are incorrect, never mind the software running on it.
Source? I imagine the amount of people trying to run local LLMs is miniscule. RAM is expensive because a handful of companies have spent billions buying all of the compute.
— Humanity has been on the decline. People are hateful towards each other, striking their fellow man and poisoning the environment. Despots eventually launched nukes which killed everyone but the cockroaches.
— And yet the world still turned.
For example the likes of Poland, China, India and Vietnam were and still are growing like crazy when you compare to the likes of UK or Germany.