You're right, of course, but I don't think blame rests solely on the individual consumer here... I guess it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, wherein Apple makes $200 knitted iPhone scrotes because they know people will line up to buy it, and people will line up to buy $200 knitted iPhone scrotes because Apple made them.

And people have brand loyalty to Apple stuff because quality, or design, or something... but for a product like this, which to me is prima facie a ridiculous, impractical, high-priced, fast-fashion item, you know that the marketers are cashing in on that brand loyalty almost exclusively (in the absence of any intrinsic value).

Half-baked thoughts, I'm sure people have written properly about this. But the conclusion I leap to is that marketing people are the great Satan here. Fuck those guys.