Who are we to believe has a grasp of the reality of value-for-money? Hacker News commenters smugly declaring that Macbooks are junk? Or Apple's sales figures?
If we're going to be rational, we can't wave it all off as marketing or shiny toys, we have to accept that if they are consistently selling tons of products at high margins, they are delivering value, and the market is voting for that value with their pocketbooks.
If we say, "Well, their prices are out of whack with their value because we can get the exact same thing from Bob's Motherboards for half the price," then we are wilfully choosing to emphasize the part of their value that their customers don't care about, while ignoring the part of their value that customers care about.
If we're going to be rational, we can't wave it all off as marketing or shiny toys, we have to accept that if they are consistently selling tons of products at high margins, they are delivering value, and the market is voting for that value with their pocketbooks.
If we say, "Well, their prices are out of whack with their value because we can get the exact same thing from Bob's Motherboards for half the price," then we are wilfully choosing to emphasize the part of their value that their customers don't care about, while ignoring the part of their value that customers care about.