[tossaccount123]

>How is anything a “status symbol” with over 30%-50% market share in industrialized nations?

That's my point, when it came out the marketing around the iPhone was how using apple made you a trendsetter and you were ahead of the curve, now everybody has one. So raise the price and bring back the sense of exclusivity

as for performance, it really doesn't matter for luxury items. People pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for old cars and it's not because they perform better than a modern economy class vehicle

[scarface74]

It actually didn’t. This was the first iPhone ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nyYloJyq9M

Or you can watch every single iPhone ad. None of them scream exclusivity.

https://www.theverge.com/2012/2/24/2820832/every-apple-iphon...

There are other iPhones for sale besides the $1500 maxed out iPhone XS Max.