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Many people here spent a lot more than $300 on headphones long before AirPods appeared.

Those were hobbyists, audiophiles, professionals, artists (recording, performing, etc.).

They are talking about a much larger group of people.

I think OP meant noise-cancelling headphones, which were fairly ubiquitous in tech circles in open offices; before Apple launched AirPods.

Airpods Inc. would be very high up SP500 as a standalone business.

I had a really nice Sennheiser before that, too. But now you hop on the subway and everybody sports one.