It actually is magic Mac memory. No joke. 8GB on macOS is good enough for 80% of people.
Anecdotally also, my one laptop that I've upgraded to Windows 11 is a lot snappier. As a rule I haven't noticed memory pressure on any device I've owned ever as a "regular user," it only really applies to gaming and heavy development with lots of VMs, especially these days.
They do it by prematurely wearing down the soldered SSD just in time for you to buy a new laptop.