> Smartphone hardware is done. There's no significant gain in buying a new smartphone if you have bought one in last 3 years

Agreed. Even a Xiaomi Mi A2 with Android One for 130-150€ is almost on par with these high end phones that cost eight times as much: It's fast enough. It has a gorgeous display. It has a decent camera and it has up-to-date software. In these times of diminishing returns it's amazing that Apple is able to fetch these prices. It shows us how much of a vendor lockin there is. Perhaps (hopefully) also how much people are willing to pay extra for more privacy.