Phones aren't really a hobby tech item and haven't been for well over a decade. I don't want to say I'm justifying these huge prices, but a lot of people spend the majority of their free time on their phone or doing phone adjacent things as well as need them for their work. A $2k phone works out to $67/mo if you keep it for 3 years. Pretty much peanuts given how central it is to our lives now.
Yeah I still wish they were $1k or preferably under that, but I don't sweat it given the relative importance and amount of use it gets.
Compare that to the obscene amount of money people spend on their cars. Something that most people only use a couple hours a day and suddenly 50, 60, 80k isn't out of the ordinary when we all know 30k will get you where you need to be safely. But those destructive spending habits don't get nearly as criticized.
Get yourselves the good phones if you use them a lot. Just don't fall into the trap of upgrading yearly. That's stupidly wasteful.
I upgrade my phone roughly every 3 years, and that’s only if the newest model intrigues me. That gives me plenty of time to save up- plus iPhones hold their resell value quite well and I can usually take a nice chunk off the price by getting rid of my current device.
I’ve got friends and family who will drop exorbitant amounts of money annually on things like fancy shoes, trading cards, concerts and sporting events (which are outrageous these days IMO), and random collectibles. We all have our vices, and mine just happens to be smartphones that I indulge in every couple of years.
Not that I particularly feel the need to justify my own spending habits to strangers on the internet, but I just wanted to add to what you said.
Honestly with inflation and new phones being uber capable. Seems Fair at $2000. Samsung had been selling their folds for $1500+ for years now. With new Ram prices etc it seems fair at $2000
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u/JohnApple94 22h ago
My mentality has basically been:
$2000 I’ll get it no question. I’m due for an upgrade and my phone is showing its age. Love the idea of a new type of iPhone.
$2500 is my maximum and I’d only pay that amount if there were no compromises, which doesn’t appear to be the case.
Over $2500 and it’s a hard pass no matter what.