> That was one of the surprising marketing lessons for the early iPhones and is a well known social phenomenon.

I don't think that invalidates my position, or argument: hence why I said that laptops provide a better UX, if I had been introduced to the bloated, spyware ridden version of the Internet provided by mobile as my first experience online, I'm pretty sure I would have never bothered. It is such an inferior version of the internet demanding more and more of the person's privacy in order to just to use as the Surveillance capitalism relies on it's users data to be the product.

> I love when people who don’t know any poor people go on these rants.

And I love it when people's biases make them so blind they can rationalize the perverse system, that they likely benefit from one form or another, that underpins it and try to sound righteous (we help the poor) in the process. This is exactly what fueled the cult of effective altruism and why it was as effective as it was, as it gave grifters a way to rationalize their cons.

> And I love it when people's biases make them so blind they can rationalize the perverse system, that they likely benefit from one form or another, that underpins it and try to sound righteous (we help the poor) in the process. This is exactly what fueled the cult of effective altruism and why it was as effective as it was as it gave grifters a way to rationalize their cons.

Nah, I'm not blind the the perverse incentives but ...

> I'm glad I'm a millennial that never got sucked into these stupid things,

I'm not blaming the poor people for their problems.

This is exclusively American "poor" people. Everyone I've known who struggles to pay bills could NEVER afford an iPhone, and wouldn't be able to get it on a payment plan either, because verizon stopped offering them contracts a decade ago, or they are stuck buying a $100 "smart talk" smartphone that is a stupidly old and underpowered machine that they then suffer through until it inevitably falls apart under normal use and they tape it back together so they don't have to buy another one for a little longer.

"Poor" people don't ever have the $800 needed to buy an iPhone at one time, like ever.

This makes a lot more sense when you look at less rich countries and see how much less popular iPhones are. It's only in America where people who aren't in poverty but rather deep into the lower class that will make sacrifices so they can buy an iPhone, or worse, pay $1600 over a two year payment plan and then UPGRADE after the plan is through. Americans are so terrified of being SEEN as poor, because they know how they vote for poor people to be treated.

I’m talking about Smartphones in general. The iPhone example was when we learned that there was a surprise uptake amongst lower income demographics because of the computer or phone affordability dilemma. This hold true for lower cost smartphones, even more so now.

> This makes a lot more sense when you look at less rich countries and see how much less popular iPhones are. It's only in America where people who aren't in poverty but rather deep into the lower class that will make sacrifices so they can buy an iPhone, or worse, pay $1600 over a two year payment plan and then UPGRADE after the plan is through. Americans are so terrified of being SEEN as poor, because they know how they vote for poor people to be treated.

Well said, and hence why I quoted Rage Against the Machine who later go on to say on a track for Sony's Godzilla movie no less:

Godzilla pure motherfucking filla'

Get your eyes on the real killa'

Despite being from the US, I will never understand this 'culture' and it seems so vapid and fake until you realize that is exactly what most people want out of their relationships as a whole: something so trite and cliche that fits in within the confines of a narrow attention span and is equally digestble on social media that signals to other like minded people in kind. The people who I see using phones as a status symbol are often the least economically stable I know: think children/teenagers or those older who simply have no other assets or investments to speak of.