I think RAM has been increasing but for the GPU rather than CPU. Also, I think Microsoft isn't quite as bad as Apple at memory usage so it still isn't that eas

I think RAM has been increasing but for the GPU rather than CPU. Also, I think Microsoft isn't quite as bad as Apple at memory usage so it still isn't that easy for a large number of people to really need more than 8GB and for anyone who plays games it is better to have extra memory in the GPU. I don't think there is all that much swapping needed with 8GB but most CPU memory tends to be used as disk cache so it still helps to have faster disks. I think of computers that started to have 8GB RAM over a decade ago as the "modern era of computing" and those systems are still fine now (at least with SSD) for a wide range of casual use, other than software that explicitly requires newer stuff (mostly GPU, sometimes virtualization or vector stuff). My sense is most hardware changes since have been in the GPU and SSDs.