There are many things that are expensive that are nevertheless not particularly seen as “status symbols”, in the sense of commonly used to publicly display one’s status/wealth/whatever.
I replaced my old iPhone XR with a brand new 16 this year, not because anything was wrong with it (even the battery was OK), but I wanted to see what the changes brought.
I was quite surprised that other than the much better battery, USB-C, and much better camera, and sometimes faster speed, the old one was holding up quite well.
You can get an old iPhone XR for 100 EURish, in decent condition. I really have no idea what model year iPhone's others have.
Americans don't earn the minimum wage. You're talking about less than 1/2 of 1% of the working population. It's a nearly worthless metric (other than as a political reference to how long it has been since the minimum wage has been increased and how far behind the median it is).
it’s just another of the many many comments in this thread where people throw out statistics to make a point, but those statistics are typically detached from reality or not even focused on the main topic of the conversation.
