No, that's true; they don't. But they still make it much more accessible to buy an iPhone for someone who doesn't have €500 or $1000 or whatever at one time to

No, that's true; they don't. But they still make it much more accessible to buy an iPhone for someone who doesn't have €500 or $1000 or whatever at one time to comfortably spend on one. The idea that iPhones could be a meaningful "status symbol" by this point in their lifetime, given all the ways one can obtain one cheaply if that is what one wants, and the percentage of people who own them, just doesn't hold up under scrutiny. It's a meme repeated by people who need some reason to believe that people don't buy Apple's products on their own merits—much like the idea that it's a "cult".