if you've ever worked low income side jobs the amount of people you see with the newest airpods and iphone while living paycheck to paycheck is high. Of all the forms of conspicuous consumption that people get accused of, this is probably the most real one, with the exception of Jordans maybe

I'm confused by why the people you're talking about cannot afford food? They're gainfully employed, even if at a low wage.

And it makes sense, because an iPhone is a fairly inexpensive luxury good. Certainly, it's cheaper than a comparably high end purse, car or house. And, in the US, it's heavily subsidized by carriers.

Gainfully employed is probably not the type of employment you mean. Smart phones and stuff typically come with a payment plan so they’re rarely bought with a lump sum

Not too mention you can breakdown the payments over years so the real cost is never felt.

Credit cards mean a lot of people can run negative budgets for quite a while before they can't eat. And a lot of people have inconsistent income. Afford an iPhone one month, can't afford groceries the next.

Are they really subsidized by carriers?

Yes you pay less upfront, but in exchange for paying more on your monthly phone bill. Less of a subsidy and more of a payment plan.

Yes, they are. In the US, at least. There's also the carrier financed phone you're talking about, but I've had good luck when switching carriers.

The free phones aren't going to be the latest generation, but they often have partial subsidization when you switch, like maybe half the cost.

Which is precisely why most of them will stay poor forever: making terrible decisions over and over.

Wow can’t downvote this on mobile but this comment is pretty rude. The usage of “them” is incredibly othering and there are so many systemic issues contributing to the poor remaining poor. For crying out loud a quick web search for “percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck” puts that number around 60% right now.

"afford" is an overloaded word

I'm sure a lot of people are frustrated by food costs, and have adjusted their food purchasing decisions, while also buying new iPhones.

Doubt. iPhone 13 is $30/month. All too easy to get on the iPhone upgrade program and perpetually give Apple $30/month.

But why let Apple take all of that margin from you? This year my iPhone XS will depreciate like $100, costing me $0.30 / day to do the same tasks just as well.

Five reasons (probably bad reasons):

Context: For a long time I stayed on my iPhone 6, trying to extract every last bit of value from it (replaced the screen 1x and the battery 2x) before it was no longer getting updates (I had it 6 years).

1. The cognitive overhead of trying to extract every last dollar is greater than $1 a day. In the back of my mind I kept going back and forth, do I upgrade the battery again, or switch to a newer $1000 phone? If I include the time and money ($100 every 2 years - $0.14 per day for the battery; $150 every 3 yeas - $0.14 per day for the screen) actually spent getting the phone fixed, then the upgrade program is a no brainer winner.

2. The improvements were noticeable! Significantly. When I got my iPhone 11 Pro after giving away my iPhone 6, my laptop usage reduced by 75% (I had been thinking of buying a new laptop - the iPhone purchase saved me money overall).

3. I stayed on my iPhone 6 because "I just didn't believe X, Y, or Z was actually worth the upgrade". For $1.5 per day (vs $0.3) for a tool able to save me $5-10 per day, every day, why ever lag behind? What if the 14 is able to save me $15 per day because of X, Y, or Z but "I just don't believe it" and miss out on years worth of "savings".

4. Even without everything I've said prior, I can afford the $1.5 per day, even for frivolous reasons. When my iPhone, a tool, costs the same as one bubble tea / fancy latte a week, I'd rather reduce my cafe visits slightly and use the best version of the tools that are known to improve my life.

5. There is still a lot more iPhones can improve on, and I would like them to improve. I specifically also buy the Pro because I view "giving Apple that margin" as a "vote with my wallet" that there is a market for a more feature-rich iPhone can do next year and the more my vote counts.

Some people borrow money to buy a house or car and consider it a better deal than saving up. This calculation can make sense.

chuckling because there was a point when I had an iPhone but could barely afford to eat (and couldn’t afford to live in a house). But yeah it was not the latest iPhone