But isn’t the scale not really relevant? There’s entire classes of luxury that are exactly the same thing to people who can own an LV bag. Saving up to buy a faberge helicopter or whatever it is.

I’m not fully sure how to articulate the thought. But it’s that looking at specific instance details distract from looking at the pattern in the abstract. Or that the first order costs don’t really tell the story. It’s the second order: percent markup for practical vs. prestige that tells a story.