More RAM is becoming the standard because software developed with more RAM is less efficient. And developers tend to have powerful computers "because it's their job", which encourages them to write inefficient code. > 16GB RAM is also a practical capacity for general tasks such as web browsing, office work 16GB RAM to read and write text and see images... I think it just says it all.
My first computer that was directly permanently connected to the Internet didn’t even have 16GB of disk space.
First it was audio, then video, and RAW camera images are almost there with the prosumer digital cameras. And those are compressed files. Software that decompresses the whole thing into arrays of regular samples will need much more RAM...