I used Wordle as an example of a game played by the masses. There are orders of magnitude more people who play things like Wordle than things like Diablo Immortal, hence my reason for using it as an example.

But still, gaming was poorly specified on my part; I should've mentioned that a $400 phone can play AAA titles, not that a $400 phone can play casual games.

Regarding the 525 dpi, you're correct, no $400 phone will have that. People who have trouble viewing a 300 dpi screen will have to pony up for a more expensive phone.

Where we've apparently landed is that $400 will let you play even AAA titles, but will not buy you 525 dpi.

For many people the cost of remaining in an iPhone-exclusive network may be worth the extra money, for others they don't have any opportunity cost to leaving the iPhone-exclusive network.

Anecdotally, I also thought that my iMessage contacts were worth the extra money, until I found out all the people in the network used whatsapp far more frequently.

Turned out, the important conversations weren't happening on iMessage anyway, which was a surprise to me at the time.