I could see it if the stand provided some benefit other than looking cool. Like acting as a heat-sink, or being a massive Thunderbolt hub.

But even I, who has bought half a dozen launch-day Apple items, was surprised that this price point made it through the marketing department. It came off as really tone-deaf. More than half of the Macs in my office use reams of paper as monitor stands.

Maybe iFixit will do a teardown and find out it's made from mermaid scales and unicorn farts.

$5000 for the iMac Pro isn’t bad if you need that kind of power - even though you could spec a regular 5K iMac that was close enough and save a grand.

The price of the Mac Pro + monitor wouldn’t even make me blink if I had a business that needed it.

But the stand is ridiculous even by Apple standards.

It's bad when you can build a desktop with the same components for $2000 or less, without the Apple Tax. Trying to act as though they aren't marking everything up at least 100% is disingenuous, but extremely common for some reason.

So try to configure an iMac Pro level desktop for $2000 less.

Don’t forget that the 5K monitor by itself is $1300.

Also try configuring a workstation for $3000 with the specs of the Mac Pro.

On the lower end, try configuring a desktop for much less than the $2100 iMac 5K.

Small nitpick, the Mac Pro and iMac Pro are 2 different products.

Yes. And that’s why I use the word “also..”.

But why is it so expensive? That’s the big question. Many times when Apple has been called out for price gauging it has been very easy to just itemize and explain. Here? Just doesn’t seem that its anything else than just price gauging. Any one experienced in mechanics that can shed some light?