There is a difference between a program using up as much memory as possible and requiring that much memory. I basically wasted $500 due to this "more memory = better" line of thinking when I upgraded my iMac to 128GB of RAM after market. I only work on 1080p video. Yes, Adobe After Effects still takes up 110GB of the RAM (since that is the max I set in preferences), but working on 1080p video doesn't require 128GB of RAM. And honestly, it really wasn't much different than 8GB of RAM - only a few seconds. I had to get certified for video editing and the lecturers/professors all stated that 8GB was enough for 1080p video editing. Shocked by this I put the original 8GB back in my Mac and sure enough, it was good enough. Only took ~30 seconds more to export a 15+ minute project and the editing experience was just as good.
Upgrading to 128gb is an extreme example, of course.
More memory IS better - but like with many other things, after a certain point (call it "more than enough") the net marginal benefit approaches zero.
And before that "more than enough" point, there is some benefit as well, but less and less.
Where exactly that point is depends on workflow and usage as well as speed of the supporting systems like swap (or from the other side, the penalty of swap declines as the system is faster).
To each their own: I know from experience 4gb is not-quite-enough for normal simple web-browsing and mail, etc (manageable but a bit of a pain, forays into yellow memory pressure if not a bit careful), really painful for heavier use (red memory pressure, massive slowdowns); 8gb is close-to-enough for slightly heavier use, but slowdowns noticeable and annoying for eg photography; 16gb fine for most of my uses, slowdowns/memory issues infrequent even under heavier use; 24gb still a noticeable improvement and removes vast majority of memory shortage and swapping; 32gb for me is basically already at the "more than enough" level, cases where noticeably improved over 24gb are extremely rare.
(Do not have M1 mac yet but I personally do NOT expect this will change the memory needed for my use cases - but everything will be faster esp swap so 16gb in a laptop will be more than enough. More would be better but not enough for me to pay Apple memory premium.)