Sorry for sounding cocky. I was responding to a "mainstream" part assuming you meant it as an usual industry norm that had nothing to do with what people can us

Sorry for sounding cocky. I was responding to a "mainstream" part assuming you meant it as an usual industry norm that had nothing to do with what people can usually afford. I developed products for many orgs and had interacted with many of their programmers and from my experience they all had very decent salaries and absolutely shitty computers. Their orgs could definitely "splurge" for what I spent on that laptop without noticing much. As a matter of fact they spent more on their crappy hardware than I spent on mine due to their purchasing policies. From this point of view yes: I do not give a flying fuck about the norm. If it is about individual trying to make ends meet I have nothing but respect.