Simple answer for you, I don't know how YOU use chrome. I love to open ~30 tabs on my laptop, not only that, I use BOTH Safari & Chrome. Safari for personal, Chrome for work accessing Google Drive, Docs etc. I got 60 tabs on my iPhone now. Don't listen to idiots who tell you there's folders and what not. How they use their computer is none of your business. Ask YOURSELF how YOU USE YOUR COMPUTER. At the same time I have WhatsApp, Slack, Outlook, Calendar open.

It is not heavy load, but it uses a lot of memory.

For MY USAGE, confirm I need to rely on swap even if its 16GB RAM. My 5600x + 32GB RAM uses swap too with my usage pattern. The MBA M2 base model, that slower SSD will definitely affect the performance. I was so ready to buy the MBA M2 in midnight base model, but the price hike AND the slower base model SSD basically turned me away from it completely. So now I am just waiting for my MBA M1 base model to arrive.

You do you, but facts remain as facts, that base SSD is slow and if you ever use swap memory, it'll slow the machine down.

Can. Even the new M2 can. Just when swap is used, it will be a bit slower - in terms of responsiveness.

You can watch the video I shared earlier and see.