Doesn't work, though. An iPhone is not an "occasional indulgence".
Fancy chocolates, or a meal at a mid-tier restaurant are an "occasional indulgence".
An iPhone is a massive class-signaling purchase that requires expensive ongoing payments to use.
Fancy chocolates, or a meal at a mid-tier restaurant are an "occasional indulgence".
An iPhone is a massive class-signaling purchase that requires expensive ongoing payments to use.
So here we have the heart of the problem.
You begrudge those who you feel are not in your class their ability to lower the value of your signal.
Maybe you should stop seeing phones as 'class signaling devices' but see them instead as small portable computers that you can make phonecalls with.
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.
I mean, I don't have any data, feel free to prove me wrong. But when I was a poor student, I wouldn't even dream of buying a smartphone outright, yet alone an iPhone.
And I had a look, those $6/month contracts barely subsidise anything. I don't really get what's relevant about them.
It's entirely possible to use an iPhone without a service plan. Free wifi is easy to find in any city or decent-sized town.