It would be a surprise if more than 0.1% of Macbook Neo users have even heard of DuckDB.
Which means that this article is probably just riding the hype.
People buy Macbook Neo because they "just need a laptop" or are budget conscious.
I imagine a student would get their hands wet with Postgre before looking at DuckDB or similar.
It would be a surprise if they do heavy workloads with DuckDB. In which case it's definitely worth investing in a more powerful computer.
It would be a surprise if more than 0.1% of Macbook Neo users have even heard of DuckDB.
Which means that this article is probably just riding the hype.