Memory usage shouldn't change that much for a similar task. It's just that paging stuff in and out is much more performant when the system is under pressure. Right now with the least amount of M1 native software available, most of it will be allocating memory natively without garbage collection.
Apple's strategy has been to avoid generational/tracing GC which reaps big benefits in terms of memory usage. It'll be interesting to see more feedback from devs running a broader range of software. It's likely people will hit apps on the long tail that use GC, and similar schemes, which will cause them to complain about memory issues. Running old apps under Rosetta 2 will be another source of complaints.
These machines are optimized for the mass market. Although they can out perform many existing machines with 8 and 16 GB of RAM, there is the huge opportunity and demand for 32GB+.
Apple's strategy has been to avoid generational/tracing GC which reaps big benefits in terms of memory usage. It'll be interesting to see more feedback from devs running a broader range of software. It's likely people will hit apps on the long tail that use GC, and similar schemes, which will cause them to complain about memory issues. Running old apps under Rosetta 2 will be another source of complaints.
These machines are optimized for the mass market. Although they can out perform many existing machines with 8 and 16 GB of RAM, there is the huge opportunity and demand for 32GB+.