[rty32]

Anecdotally, my observation is that SWEs are the group of people who are the least likely to think of laptops as status symbols. People buy $1500 laptops because (they think) they work efficiently on those machines. Otherwise, people are very happy to use $300 Chromebooks or framework laptops as long as they get the job done. Many people put very little thoughts into which laptop they buy.

You probably are thinking about a different group of people.