Do you live in the US? Maybe not, but iPhones have something like a 50% market share here, and in some regional cases a lot higher. For example, in southern California where I live, iPhones are easily in the majority of people’s hands. The point is that this feeling is probably more a ‘your problem’ issue, and it’s hard to make a case that people use these phones as a way to feel exclusive if the market share is so high. There may be some issues of exclusion amongst teenagers etc., but teenagers are going to teenager. I’m just talking about the US though. In some emerging markets there may be a case made for the iPhone to be seen as ‘luxury,’ but this hasn’t been the case in the US for a while. iPhones are seen as an ordinary, almost default phone.
Lots of iPhones cost way less than $1k, and there’s plenty of Android flagships that cost over $1k, and they’re all decent phones. Sure, go ahead and judge people for spending money on a device they use every day.
And what I said about the ‘default’ phone is true, and that’s for normal middle class families. Far from the elite. I’m just reporting the facts, it’s maybe people have a different frame of reference depending on where they live.