Mildly Infuriating

While it's true that you hit a point of diminishing returns, there's a sharp divide between, say, a $200 bag and a $20 bag. Technically a plastic shopping bag will serve the same purpose as a purse, but it's likely to break in less than a day. A $20 bag might last a few months of daily use if you're careful, but it's going to have cheap/non-durable materials, have cheap findings, and be poorly made. At $200, the odds are pretty high that it's going to be well made, use solid materials that will last, and have fittings that aren't going to corrode, fall off, or break in a few months.

I have a designer wallet that I've used every day for over 15 years, and while it looks beat up, it's still fully intact. I averaged about one every 3-4 years before I got this one.

See also: Cap'n Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

Because they get to show off. Other people see it and they feel bad for not having access to the resources required to do this. And you know what? All of us do this shit in some way or another. Fancy cars, vanity muscles that don't actually help you, talent in things that have no real practical value, fancy collections, big house. All of us are performing, trying to tell the world "I am so amazing I can afford this waste". And if we have nothing to brag about we can always brag about our indifference. As if all of us secretly didn't wish deep down that they had so much money they could spend $2k on what should be 20.

I think you understand it perfectly fine, you just don't like what it implies about us all.

I just don’t understand the appeal of paying $3,000 for a handbag when a $20 handbag will can do just the same thing.

The appeal is that a $3,000 handbag sends a signal, one that you have $3,000 to spend on a handbag and are the type of person who would do such a thing.

So why do people buy 3000 dollar mechanical watches when a 20 quartz dollar watch can keep time better? Why do people buy 300 dollar mechanical keyboards when a 20 dollar rubber dome can also get words on your PC screen? Why do people spend thousands of dollars on Magic the Gathering cards when you can buy the same number of cards for 20 dollars?

Being into designer fashion isn't much different than other expensive hobbies, and the cost benefit of a hobby item is the last thing on the mind of any enthusiast provided they can afford it.

If you have many millions of dollars lying around it might make sense, for the same reason it might make sense to a normal person to spend a few dollars on an item they could instead spend 50 cents for a cheaper version of if they wait a few months for slow shipping from China. What a pricetag means to you changes depending on how much you have to spend.

Yes, but you and I aren't the market for these. There are a lot of dumb, impressionable people, and some of them have money too.

I like these brands cuz they're like "from the rich, to the rich" kind of things. It has nothing to do with the rest of us. And we don't understand them either, like I recently bought some nice looking shoes made in probably some Chinese factory and they're gonna last me for years. Same thing with some branded shoes just more expensive, it's not they last longer or anything either cuz planned obsolescence.