This idea that anyone who isn't buying some cheap Android phone is doing it for fashion/trend reasons is ridiculous, insulting and condescending.
The fact is that I care about my privacy and security and only Apple seems to take it seriously. They also support their devices for years so I look at it like its an investment. That is easily worth the extra $10 or $20 a month I pay for my mobile phone plan.
Seeing that the iPhone 5s was introduced 5 years ago and is still getting updates, the 7 should still be getting updates until 2022.
What about cars? Are you proclaiming that everyone should drive a Corolla? Or that everyone should drive whatever it is that you personally drive?
Who are you to decide what is significant to the "average" person, if there is such a thing?
And we're seeing this on the mobile market as well, especially in lower income places like China and India - the 300$ phones these days can do pretty much everything what an iPhone does. With a bit less pixels, slightly worse camera and less words like "Magical!" in the marketing pitch.
So it's getting really hard for people to throw away several months of their savings to get a marginally better product with an Apple logo on it. And you can see this in sales - people go for Huaweis and Xiaomis in Chinese market in droves. Even in Europe, Huawei is gaining a massive piece of market due to their cheap and good offerings.
A lot of phone have roughly comparable specs, but the camera and overall software behavior is not comparable on lower-tier phones.