Yes, what you said is completely true. I am not saying that Apple is evil, I personally own Apple products and I think they're great (but overpriced). I just wanted to point out the length some people go just to have Apple in their pockets. Apple is not evil, but they know what they're doing, and they know that the prestige of their products is used by people to try and neutralize the sense of worthlessness they feel inside. This manipulation is even more evident now that they are selling phones that are almost identical to the previous generation, bring nothing substantially new to the table, if not new smokes and mirrors. I'm sure that in their headquarters, they now spend less and less time innovating and more and more time refining their selling skills.

And you are also a founder of a fashion company which is even more about selling a temporary sense of worth than what Apple does.

How can you criticize Apple when you are doing the same thing?

Did you really resort to scavenging OP's online presence in an attempt to discredit his anecdote against Apple?

To me this behavior reinforces OP's point.

I didn’t resort to scavenging anything. I just looked at his HN profile. Why have profiles if not for us to look at them?

I honestly expected to see him engaged in something that was against the kind of preying on insecurity he claims Apple is doing, and was curious to see what it was because I want to see examples of marketing that doesn’t do this.

I was genuinely surprised to see what business he was in, and find it bizarrely hypocritical of him, since he is doing exactly what he accuses Apple of doing.

Can you explain how this reinforces his point?

You should try working at a car dealership. People do this with brand new vehicles, just multiply the euros by 20!

Applying just now ;)

Right on, it sounds like the customer here was hooked on the unboxing experience or something like that, or was seeking out a distraction from life.

Probably so.