Maybe because most programs you'd use (browser, word processor, spreadsgeets, etc) requires 8+ gb, and the non-windows side of MS wanted the requirements so edge, word, excel, etc are guaranteed to actually work on every computer that ships with those programs?
Woah, so the big 3 (Mastodon, Kbin, and Lemmy) of the fediverse text/discussion-based social media can all used from a single account/feed. That's awesome!