What laptop manufacturers sell $1200 laptops that don't come with a base 8GB RAM option? I don't know any. Not Dell, or HP, or Lenovo.
Apple still sells 13" Macbook Pros that go up to 32GB RAM, they're just Intel ones. If you need more than 16 GB in a Pro Mac, or a Mini you can still get it. So these options have not been taken off the table. The M1 machines simply offer a new tradeoff of smaller but faster memory if that works for you. Not every machine needs to offer every possible configuration.