Correct me if I'm wrong, but a big focus of his was user friendly affordable tech. Not luxury items like apple is now.
But I agree it wasn’t expensive for the sake of being expensive (the definition of luxury) like today where the high price is almost a feature. It was expensive because they always tried to be different and it allowed them to set higher prices.
I do wonder, same as you, what things would be like if he was still around. Maybe technology would be friendlier, and have a better place in this world. But at the same time, I remember how the man lived: eating fruit to supposedly stave off his cancer, violently berating his employees to get things finished faster, and even telling his daughter that she smelled like a toilet on his deathbed. Steve Jobs was a man, imperfect yet aligned just so that his manic side was completely hidden from the public (as opposed to, say, Ballmer). In any case, I'm tired of tech CEOs being self-important and elitist. Steve Jobs was the genesis for that, and his inability to admit when he was wrong ultimately lead to his demise.
I'm saying this from a truly impartial, empathetic and caring place: Steve Jobs' behavior should serve as a warning sign for what happens when you let infinite ego expand unchecked.
If we go back further apple products get even more expensive. The apple ii(released in 1978) was $1298 or $5543 in today's dollars, not exactly cheap!
I think he also listened to a variety of people and made course corrections.
As to affordability: they always had high margins.
wikipedia says of the original macintosh 128k:
Introductory price: US$2,495 (equivalent to US$6,220 in 2020)
Three months before the release, John Sculley decided to raise the price to $2495 and use the extra profits for marketing. Steve Jobs was upset at this but eventually gave in. I've often wondered how different things would have been if Steve had won that argument... probably not very, to be honest.
Source: Andy Hertzfeld <https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...>
I'm not going to say Apple is about inexpensive products. The notion of luxury (outside some of their watch products, I guess) is a marketing angle though. They're accessible to enough peoples' budgets such that they dominate many market verticals. They've succeeded in this to such a degree that it's almost black magic to me.