You and the average HNer have all sorts of spending excesses in your life from rent to UberEats to your phone to your vehicle to your grocery lists to your hobbies to the things you buy your children to all the crap in your house that dwarf the price of some nice headphones.
Scraping together $500 is not a lot for something you will use daily for years. I think it's a better investment than a TV. The only difference is that you apparently don't want them.
For some reason people will scrutinize the price of something they don't want while being blind to how much they spend on all the things they do want.
e.g. we don't have to go very far back in time to have tallied up $500 you've spent in your life on unneeded food that gave you seconds of pleasure only to be shat out hours later, yet you're disgusted how someone else might choose to spend their $500, and on something like a tech gadget. It's a very weird judgemental reflex and quite a bit obnoxious to see.
Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned. [0]
> I worked for a top-20 Fortune company
So I assume you might be trying to be sarcastic with this 1 USD
Yeah I agree parent is making a lot of assumptions about the average commenter of HN but they might not be far off seeing many of us are connected somehow to the Tech Sector which well paid around the world.
https://www.dw.com/es/salario-m%C3%ADnimo-en-venezuela-092-d...
> Also interesting because in a comment some time ago you mentioned.
Nice work there Sherlock. I assume your sharp mind realized that I used the past tense.Life is complicated, not everybody is a 20 something yo working for a FAANG.
Anything else that I can be useful to you sir?
It's not that they're $550, it's that they don't need to be $550. Choosing higher quality groceries, ordering delivery instead of going out during a pandemic, or even just buying things that will bring you and your children joy is on a different level than "I will get these $500 headphones instead of the $300 ones that do the same thing just because I can afford them".
Even if you're not explicitly trying to be as moral as possible with every purchase, there is a tangible difference between buying things that will improve your life or the lives of those around you, and buying things that are expensive just because you can.
This oddly assumes in this example that somehow the Airpods Max don't bring a person joy because of the price tag
It's no different comparing cars or any other items. Option A can do what Option B does but is cheaper. People buy B because they want to. Why would this be any different here.
Anyone who doesn't want to spend $550 on headphones don't have to.
> "I will get these $500 headphones instead of the $300 ones that can do the same thing just because I can afford them"
But that isn't entirely true. If you want over ear headphones that support Spatial Audio, these are the only option.
I'm not saying Airpods Max being this expensive makes sense. I'm not saying they are definitively better. But there are differences and regardless, not a good reason to be repulsed about pricing. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
It probably is.
> $500 for headphones seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive.
You could say that about any number. "Raise the minimum wage to 100 USD/h" "That's excessive" "100 for an hourly minimum wage seems like a very arbitrary standard for what is excessive" There is 0 insight there.
> They would consider spending $50 -- or even $15 -- on a restaurant meal to be obscene.
Yes those dumb poor people cannot see the difference between a 15 USD meal satisfying a human unavoidable necessity and a +500 luxury item.
> It's all relative.
So Einstenian of you.
Also the high end is a lot more than just pro headphones, in fact I'll go ahead and claim that most mastering-oriented headphones (not that many, I'll give you that) I heard tend to have a tonality that I dislike.
These definitely are in the "gadget" rather than "tool" category, and while there may be worse things to spend money on, or better ways to distribute wealth, I won't disagree that these headphones belong in the same category as Gucci handbags.
I expect the rest of the industry to copy Apple to make affordable versions of this product as has been the case with other products, so it should be a net positive for humanity.