> Apple has a monopoly on the social status associated with their devices, and leverages the monopoly in many unscrupulous and toxic ways. Status-signaling con

> Apple has a monopoly on the social status associated with their devices, and leverages the monopoly in many unscrupulous and toxic ways. Status-signaling consumer products are always overpriced. It's what makes them useful as status signals. You used to buy expensive impractical clothes to show you could afford to buy expensive impractical clothes. Now you buy Apple devices to show that you can afford to buy overpriced tech. If you bring the price of the status symbol down to a more natural level it ceases to be a status symbol. Apple's defense of their control over the platform (and the higher-than-necessary prices they charge) isn't destructive to consumer welfare, it's the very thing consumers are paying for.