I doubt it. In corporate environments I see so many base models being used. Most office workers do everything on SaaS web apps anyway; they only need sufficient RAM to run a browser and browser-based apps. Having small amount of storage is a feature not a bug, because it prevents employees from downloading too much company proprietary information onto their laptops.
I do something similar with my personal laptops/PCs too — any actual files are in cloud storage[1], and mounted[2] so that they don't actually sync to the device, therefore not taking up space...
Honestly it feels very freeing having your data just be in server(s) somewhere, not having to worry about moving it between devices, or having to copy it over if you need to format/get rid of the device, or forgetting to copy over a file you need to your phone when going out, etc...
> they only need sufficient RAM to run a browser and browser-based apps.
browser-bases apps are notoriously memory hogs, your point doesn't make much sense.
the truth is that apple get away with cheating a lot on their OS as they swap aggressively and do very aggressive swap compression.
the part about swapping aggressively is essentially overlooked by the entire industry: swapping to flash storage will wear it out faster, which is a huge issue when the flash chip is soldered and not replaceable. this will essentially create more e-waste (but they get to (happily) sell you a new laptop). so long for being green.
