Sure, it's possible to get by on 4 GB of RAM today, but it used to work a lot better!

Compare the memory usage of:

• 2008-era Skype and iChat vs Slack, Teams, and Discord.

• 2008-era web pages (including with Flash embeds) vs modern web pages.

• Microsoft Office 2007 vs current Microsoft 365.

And it's not only or even primarily memory, but also CPU requirements and so on.