Counterpoint: after the novelty of wearing the super classy outfit and waving the iPhone 5 wears off once you have a job, what else do you now have to purchase -- outside your means -- to convince your co-workers that you "belong"?
It would be cheaper to look for a job in an environment that is more interested in what you can do rather than what you tote.
That's not a counterpoint in poor-person logic. It's a counterpoint in you-the-guy-who-has-more-correct-assumptions logic.
This is what I'm trying to get across with my posts on this topic.
People keep using reasoning from within a higher-class group where you already know the rules and assumptions of the game. The whole point is that the people below don't.
You probably genuinely do believe that, but the tech industry is notorious for superficial judgements - consider that you would know exactly what I meant if I described someone as a "suit". Maybe he's just a guy who likes to dress well? Maybe he was born in a more conservative culture and that's just what people wear? But God help him if he shows up to the interview in it.
It would be awesome if HR people only ever judged people on skill, and not on appearance or presentation. But if there's one big takeaway from this article, it's that there really are gatekeepers that filter people based on whether they "belong". Faking that belonging can be incredibly important to escape the poverty trap.
It would be cheaper to look for a job in an environment that is more interested in what you can do rather than what you tote.
That is, after all, what most of us end up doing.