I use Docker with multiple containers running almost all the time. Local PostgreSQL and MySQL.
I use from time to time Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer.
I mostly use now VScode, sometimes Rubymine.
Video calls: Mostly Zoom, some Google Meet, rarely something else.
1: https://www.macworld.com/article/675869/how-to-connect-two-o...
But it seems not to be the case.
Because RAM is the hard cap (if you ignore SWAP) while here's infinite number of CPU cycles. With a slow CPU things will just take a bit longer, but with not enough RAM then that's it, it's game over for your workloads (again if you ignore SWAP which I don't want to rely on, especially on a system where SSD is soldered).
Maybe I run 20VMs at once or 200 Chrome tabs or 3 electron instances.
You buy as little as you need let others buy how much they need.