Please show me where I said they shouldn't exist? There's definitely a market for them, so I think they should exist. It's just - if I'm being honest - you're either a fool, or very rich, to be buying some of these "veblen goods" (given the more than adequate alternatives)

Very rich? If you replace it every year and spend $1000 each time, that's only around $3 / day. There are an awful lot of people that can afford that.

When you consider how a phone is the primary computing device for a lot of people, it's an even easier decision.

When you start getting really serious about retirement savings, you'll understand why a difference of 0.50 cents per day v.s. $3.00 per day, is actually a big deal.

Enough of those differences, and things start to really add up. Enough things add up, and you realize that money could have been making you ~8% in an index fund for the last year. Suddenly, the iPhone, the multiple Starbucks, the BMW, the designer clothes... all things rationalized as "just a few bucks a day" ... end up costing way more than that.