Completely viable. This isn't at all like selling the HDD based 21" iMac until 2021 which was asinine.
I've had 16GB of memory and a 1TB SSD in every MacBook Pro (and one 12" MacBook) that I've owned since at least 2012. My current 13" M1 MacBook Pro has 8GB of memory and I haven't felt it limiting outside of FCP X or PS with giant files.
I've never had a Mac that felt faster day to day. Apple Silicon swaps extremely well to SSD (assuming it's not full), and Cloud Storage is reducing our storage needs.
Sure, the memory gauge will show near full, but memory pressure which is the more useful metric is usually quite low.
My other Mac is a 2019 i9 9900k iMac with 48GB of memory. Outside of Final Cut Pro or 2+ GB Photoshop files, I prefer my MacBook Pro for everything -- even Lightroom.
Cloud storage means that my Photos Library which used to take 300GB on device now happly lives on iCloud and uses very little on device storage. I almost always have 50+ Mbps download so it isn't an issue. Adobe's Lightroom Cloud moved a further 1TB of photos off my device.
Most users will be more than happy with Apple Silicon with 8GB of memory and 256GB of SSD storage. I have a half dozen friends who bought Apple Silicon MacBook Air's with exactly those specs and have often called them their favorite computers ever.