The Apple apologists are going to call this a marketing stunt, but functionally it's just the inevitable conclusion of a platform monopoly that's extremely hard

The Apple apologists are going to call this a marketing stunt, but functionally it's just the inevitable conclusion of a platform monopoly that's extremely hard to leave. All it really does for me is send a very strong message about what Apple thinks about its customers, but I'm not really the type that enjoys spending $5000 on a $1000 computer for it's Veblen good aesthetics and the joys of trying to get my linux production software to run on their tortured unix. If Apple's profit margins are coming from extremely expensive business computers and high end phones, there could be some brutal earnings reports in their future. Will be interesting to see, but given their current war chest I suppose they could just buy their way into the current valuation for a while with dividends and buybacks.