iuufuri

That this person has a .jp address may be relevant. In my experience Americans are much more tolerant of “good enough” than, say, Japanese people. An American might even ship a high end final product with four figure price tag that literally was made with hot glue. (cough Grado)

Whereas a Japanese business would rather just not ship in such a case. Look at the Nintendo, such as the 3d Mario games. Those things are polished to an insane degree that no American studio would bother with.

Apple is exceptional in many ways and this is one of them. Microsoft, with “no taste”, is the standard American fare.

If it was truly unavoidable to pay as much as you probably pay for housing, food, and utility, wouldn’t a lot of people be dead? On the other hand an iPhone is an iPhone anywhere in the world, and sometimes multiple times annual salary.