> Doesn't work, though. An iPhone is not an "occasional indulgence".
It absolutely is. You can buy a decent used iPhone for a couple hundred bucks. This is a purchase that will be used for hours each day and last years. Amortized, its hourly cost is almost nothing, a fraction of your alternate options. Purchasing a good phone is thus a rational economic decision to maximize utility, because of how often it gets used.
> Fancy chocolates, or a meal at a mid-tier restaurant are an "occasional indulgence".
You can buy "fancy chocolates" once a month for two years for the equivalent cost of using an iPhone over that period. As for a meal at a mid-tier restaurant, you're looking at eating out once per quarter versus getting to use a nice phone for hours each day. The poor aren't stupid. The phone is simply a much better use of their limited funds than these frivolous wastes of money that for some reason you are projecting that they should rather indulge in.
> An iPhone is a massive class-signaling purchase that requires expensive ongoing payments to use.
Bullshit, it's a necessity of modern life. If you don't have a phone and Internet access it's nigh impossible to even find a job. Employers of all levels expect you to be accessible, if for no other reason than changing your shift time on you.
It absolutely is. You can buy a decent used iPhone for a couple hundred bucks. This is a purchase that will be used for hours each day and last years. Amortized, its hourly cost is almost nothing, a fraction of your alternate options. Purchasing a good phone is thus a rational economic decision to maximize utility, because of how often it gets used.
> Fancy chocolates, or a meal at a mid-tier restaurant are an "occasional indulgence".
You can buy "fancy chocolates" once a month for two years for the equivalent cost of using an iPhone over that period. As for a meal at a mid-tier restaurant, you're looking at eating out once per quarter versus getting to use a nice phone for hours each day. The poor aren't stupid. The phone is simply a much better use of their limited funds than these frivolous wastes of money that for some reason you are projecting that they should rather indulge in.
> An iPhone is a massive class-signaling purchase that requires expensive ongoing payments to use.
Bullshit, it's a necessity of modern life. If you don't have a phone and Internet access it's nigh impossible to even find a job. Employers of all levels expect you to be accessible, if for no other reason than changing your shift time on you.