Financial worth comes from your net worth, yes. But your worth as a human being isn't related to any of that.

I hear this a lot, but the evidence indicates that the majority of humanity judge a person's worth on their assets, money and job title. Sometimes, physical appearance as well.

It wasn't/isn't as extreme as today in some other cultures. In the orthodox jewish culture, you'll get a better bride by being very good at learning the scriptures. There's also a lot of respect for people who do good deeds.

You don't have to listen to random strangers' judgments though.

And what about all the people who are not random strangers? The people who can have a material effect on my life and will do so, in part, on their assessment of my worth? Shall I ignore them as well? What does that get me?

The points I was making without spelling them out explicitly, before being confronted with the sad fact that too many people appear to have been watching the Hallmark Channel, are that there is no such thing as intrinsic worth, people make decisions that affect you based in part upon their assessment of your worth, and a lot of that assessment is based on possessions, money, job title and physical appearance.

Choosing to ignore this doesn't make it go away.

Well, my friends really don't care what kind of phone I have.

I genuinely don't believe you. I believe they look at your phone and that influences the opinion they have of you. I believe that if you tell yourself this isn't true, you're deceiving yourself. If I believe this, some of them do too, and that makes it true. I don't think I've ever met anyone who looked at the latest iPhone the same way they looked at a ten-year old phone held together with tape and a rubber band.

Until you want a sex partner, a job, or just a friend

(I used to dismiss the importance of appearence as well. But the few days I do dress nice, everything changes)