But seeing that in one app can be the app's fault, not the system. If Safari and Chrome did the same thing, yes, it's Apple's fault.

I'm running Monterey on an M1 (16GB now, I traded in the 8 GB). Chrome has no problems. Safari sucks ram sometimes. Firefox sucks it worse.

That could change overnight, of course. And it doesn't always let Apple off the hook: Firefox might be using a crap system call that Chrome isn't. Doubtful, as most of the browsing framework has to be the same on Mac, but it could.