Maybe they don't, but don't be surprised if they won't give a flying duck about Nokia and Windows Phone when they'll decide to get another $1k phone.
If I recall correctly, the most recent examples of phones with premium price and not-so-premium hardware were Samesung Galaxy Alpha and Fire Phone, and both flopped miserably. Your idea of how people should behave and what rights do they have doesn't make people act differently.
First off, I have yet to see a single Windows Phone device for $1000. There's not a single one up to date. The only devices in that price range that immediately come to my mind are iPhones. Funny enough, you don't see many complain about the lack of support or whatnot. Because support is uber at Apple? No flipping way. Yes, they do support their older devices. But the newer the OS, the more terrible it runs on older hardware. Lags, stuttering, crashes. Very well known and even better documented issues. Yet you sill don't see their users complain about it. They gladly pay 800 bucks or more and are completely happy with what they get in return. Why? Because Apple's hardware is top notch and far ahead of the competition? Let's be honest here, it's not superior or inferior in any way compared to other flagship devices. And as I've pointed out, the support isn't that much better either. People just accept, that there are certain things that simply can't be done on older devices. They accept, that newer OS versions are of course optimized towards the latest hardware. This means that there are a lot of features, they won't get for their older handset, and a newer OS will even cause stability and performance issues. Yet they do not complain, because they just KNOW how things work. If they want to make the most out of an OS, they always will have to get the latest and greatest hardware. No matter how much they paid for their current phone.
Funny enough the most whining happens over at Android. People expect low end devices to be able to perform as good as flagships (e.g. games). And the very same is happening on Windows Phones. I can't even count anymore how many users I've seen crying in these very forums that games lack support for 512MB RAM or run like crap on their outdated toys. The store ratings are also telling the very same story.
So how come that Apple uses pay a premium but almost never complain, but totally accept their fate?
Why does it seem that mobile gadgets are where people expect to get more and more in return for what they paid? When I purchase a cheap car, I certainly do not expect it to blow a Porsche out of the water. And I'm sure most other people who buy cars don't do either. Yet they do when it comes to smartphones, tablets etc.
There's (almost) nothing wrong about how Microsoft, Apple, HTC or Samsung act. It's the people who are the issue here.
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