They did that. But when the AI craze hit turned that all the 8GB base model Macs didn’t have enough space for even basic models (in addition to the 1-2 electron apps you can run simultaneously).

Of course seems like local AI is more or less a flop in the consumer market at least?

But still IMHO even for general use macos with 8GB is almost unusable unless you use it like an Ipad.

8GB is unusable, but is MacOS and Safari optimizabe? The point is they control the stack so they could reduce memory usage. It would be a big selling point, it could make a Mac "experience for experience" price competitive with PCs.