For the use cases you described the base model should be more than sufficient.
The only argument that could be made for upgrading is future proofing the machine. In a few years apps and macOS might become more resource hungry but that’s just speculation. If you’re planning to use it for 5+ years or so it might be worth upgrading the RAM to 16gb.
Storage wise 256gb isn’t that much but at least you can use external storage to „increase“ that a bit. You won’t have any way to upgrade your RAM in the future other than buying a new machine (RAM is soldered to the mainboard on macs). So if you only want to spend money on one upgrade prioritise ram over the ssd.
You can ignore the stuff people say about the slower ssd speeds in the base 256gb m2 air. You won’t notice any difference in your use case.
For the use cases you described the base model should be more than sufficient.
The only argument that could be made for upgrading is future proofing the machine. In a few years apps and macOS might become more resource hungry but that’s just speculation. If you’re planning to use it for 5+ years or so it might be worth upgrading the RAM to 16gb.
Storage wise 256gb isn’t that much but at least you can use external storage to „increase“ that a bit. You won’t have any way to upgrade your RAM in the future other than buying a new machine (RAM is soldered to the mainboard on macs). So if you only want to spend money on one upgrade prioritise ram over the ssd.
You can ignore the stuff people say about the slower ssd speeds in the base 256gb m2 air. You won’t notice any difference in your use case.