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by alexvoda 1265 days ago
With the tiny nitpick that there is a distinction between signalling status and having status itself. And the relationship between the two is not always straight forward.

Status symbols are more related to the former.

1 comments

A further observation here is that selling status symbols is what Apple does. They have transitioned from being a computer manufacturer for the DTP and creative industry to being a luxury brand. But that itself is not enough. In the pre-iPhone days, Vertu was the luxury cellphone brand. Similarly, there are plenty of car brands that are more exclusivist than Tesla. Yet they do not have the same outsized influence on the market.

Therefore the issue probably is a status symbol that scales to the mass market.