Memory is cheap in the the first world. I live in Argentina, which is not a particularly poor or undeveloped country, and my 8GB of RAM are almost impressive. I know of no one who has 16 GB, and a few of my friends have 8. Most people I know of have between 1GB and 4GB, with 2GB being by far the most common configuration.
I live in 'the first world' and I can't afford more RAM. $50 is far too much for me to spend at the moment. (A need for more RAM is trumped by my powerful urge to eat.) Not to mention working at a corporate job where the computers are older than my children and every ounce of saved RAM is a blessing.
Most people in the States have whatever their computer came with. Even computers with user-serviceable RAM can usually only address twice as much RAM as the machine came with. So, if last generation's hardware comes with nMB RAM, and this generation's comes with 2nMB RAM, owners of last generation's hardware can usually only upgrade their RAM once.
It's a bit silly, because RAM and storage seem to be the only things most people need more of on a daily basis. I suspect 5 year old CPUs would meet most people's needs just fine.
