Thing is, you might consider spending 3k + on a TV to be stupid (as do I in most situations), or consider having the latest I phone to be insane (again if you’re paying for it yourself, I agree), but others probably think what you and I spend money on to be just as stupid.
Up until 2 years ago I had never spent more than £1,700 on a car, 2 years ago I spent 3k on one with just 27,000 miles on the clock (genuine mileage), I simply don’t get why people buy new cars (company car is a different matter) where they loose a few k just driving off the forecourt.
I also don’t get why people lease cars (UK) when you end up paying say 10k + over 4 years and your restricted on mileage and you don’t even own it.
Sure many would argue they need a reliable car for work. My wife’s a mobile hairdresser, she uses our car all day every day, in the 10 years she’s done that job, two days the cars been in the garage (again except for most recent, all cars under £1700 and on average we kept for 3 years)
However, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at spending 3k + on a synthesiser and over the years since I was 18 (am now 56) I would hate to think of the many many thousands I spent on my synth hobby. I’ve owned many expensive synths, sold them at a loss as I wanted newer models, and now, many sought after vintage synths that go for thousands, I used to own (even gave one away free to a friend and the current used price starts from £2,300)
My point is, we all have things we love, to me it’s synths etc. To others its cars. I consider a car to be a metal box that gets me from A to B hence have zero interest in most aspects of them.
Some people want the latest and greatest phones. I don’t get why, but they wouldn’t get why I’ve spent so much money on synths (and lately software synths).
Then there’s our hobby, I’ve got cheaper end of stuff in my lab, although I did upgrade my microscope to a nice Amscope (and also bought a camera for it off of one of this forums members, have zero interest in putting up vids of myself, I just wanted one).
My bench top multimeters cost about £125 each (Vici VC8145) and at the moment they are more than adequate for me, yet if I look on this forums for sale section, there’s a Rigol DM3068 selling for £450 and retails around £759.
I see that as being no different than people and their phones (although I do have concerns about school kids and young adults who believe they need the latest and greatest just to be cool/fit in).
I have a iPhone 7, my wife has a Samsung. Both bought second hand and we are both on contracts that give us unlimited calls and text , 8 GB data (that carries over for 3 years) for £10 a month each. Data balance carried over is currently at around 168 GB and either phone can use it.
I can log into my bank using fingerprint Id on my phone, check my transactions etc all in under 20 secs. It has a lot of very useful uses apart from using it only as a phone