It's a fine line, but I feel Apple avoided being exploitative here. The vibe wasn't "you deserve to have this terrible thing happen if you don't buy our product." The watch clearly provided real utility to real customers and it's worth highlighting.

One could indeed argue!

I was personally eager to pay for the cellular-equipped Watch as long as I was getting one, because even without an explicit data plan, if you fall off a bike, it will call 911 for you automatically unless you tell it not to.

That's insurance of a kind I couldn't purchase prior to that, in a form I would actually use and have on me if this actually happened. Fine by me.

The older you get, the more ways to fall down and need 911 start to exist. I'm okay with Apple "cashing in" on that.

And that was the almost-universal response on reddit and YouTube comments, but are those people more, or less likely to buy an Apple Watch? Maybe not for themselves, maybe for their grandparents? Besides, it's the absolute bedrock of modern marketing, from weight loss pills to perfumes to clothing: when ads depict supposed customers smiling with their families, or going on a date, or being the center of attention at a party, it's the exact same psychological trick, twisting the knife of your insecurities, fears and FOMO, just done more subtly.

Well, that is one of the pillars of advertising these days.

Survival food? Fear.

Antivirus software? Fear.

Expensive Organic Cat Food? Fear (of the inorganic cheap food).

LifeLock? Fear.

Insurance of any kind? Fear.

Solar panels for off-grid? Fear (of the grid going down).

Your cousin's extensive gun collection? Fear (if things get bad).

And so on...

Some of those might be a stretch to go with fear.

Solar panels is pretty much targeted as a way to avoid high utility bills, trying to go green, etc. If you're in a circle of consipiracy types, then maybe the off-grid aspect is preached more. Mainly though, it's just about avoiding the bills, and maybe avoiding power interruptions. That requires batteries though. That might qualify as fear advertising.

Insurance is mere pragmatism. Knowing that bad things happen that require large amounts of money to fix doesn't constitute fear.