If you're going to upgrade every N years/product cycles just to keep up with hardware advancements, then paying for a repair is money spent on a device that wil

If you're going to upgrade every N years/product cycles just to keep up with hardware advancements, then paying for a repair is money spent on a device that will be out of date sooner. Depending on how close/far you are from an anticipated upgrade it might make more sense to reset the clock. My MacBook Pro is from 2011. If the logic board fails, I'll get a new machine without question even though it serves me fine and the repair would be 1/4 or less than a new model of the same tier. If I had an iPhone X and it needed a $500 repair today, I might pay for that if I had no intention of getting the iPhone X 2 or whatever it gets called. If I really wanted the "X 2", I'd start looking at other options whether that's a cheaper iPhone, a special plan from my cell provider, etc. What I'm trying to describe is that rather than calculate what's best based on their own habits, consumers will react based on their gut feeling. Apple marketing definitely has an effect on that feeling but so does the desire to remain within Apple's ecosystem and therefore keep giving them money in one way or another.