iPhone X was an illusory improvement forced a year early to justify making the $800 to $1000 price tag bump easier to swallow.

I’m not big on pictures myself. I’ve probably taken short of twenty screenshots across a hundred games I played since I got my PlayStation 4 four years ago. Even though most of these games had phenomenal art and visuals and had interestingly clever implementations of photo modes in-game, I’ve only posted a screenshot of my own taking on Twitter, exactly once.

I told you I watch every iPhone event but to be honest with you, I’ve never had an iPhone since iPhone 4. I didn’t even buy it. My phone right now, a Sony Xperia Z5 compact, has an okay camera. With it, I take five pictures each month on average. The frequency goes way up when traveling for sure but aside from that, the camera app would go long stretches unopened.

I understand I’m of the small minority in this. What I don’t understand is how far people are willing to go and how deep in their pockets they’re willing to reach just to have the best photos they can have. I believe most people don’t even realize that they do.

Most consumers don’t realize that every photo they take and post online is free advertising for the company they bought the product from. Millions of people who aren’t photographers use the hashtag #shotoniphone on Twitter or Instagram all for the benefit of Apple and Apple alone.

Professional and amateur photographers who now use their iPhones exclusively to shoot may ride this deluge of eyeballs on these hashtags to get exposure for their work but even that is free advertising for Apple. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s brilliant social media age advertising.

We are giving these smartphone manufacturers free marketing after we’ve already invested large sums of money on their products. In the last ten years, the prices of smartphones have risen and plateaud even though all economic theories about the relationship of prices and technological innovation suggest that prices should have been on a downward trajectory already.

Last year, in probably it’s most cunning business trick yet, Apple introduced the iPhone X. It’s introduced as a “leap” in product design and innovation compared to its contemporary “normal” edition iPhone 8. In truth, it’s just a minor improvement.

The real leap was the price. It heralded the jump in base prices for flagship smartphones from the leading manufacturers without the corresponding significant increase in value.

People were so focused on the shiny dual lens camera they didn’t notice iPhone X was an illusory improvement forced a year early to justify making the $800 to $1000 price tag bump easier to swallow. And boy did consumers gobble that up.

Fast forward to this year’s iPhone Xs, everyone now expects to pay $200 dollars more for the best iPhone, yielding “it’s the new normal, look at those photos though!”.

We‘re all too concerned by every camera bullet point which were carefully worded to do one thing and one thing only. Sell us.

First, sell us on the idea that we must take photos every single moment of our lives. Second, sell us on the idea that the photos we take should always look professionally taken. And most importantly for them, sell us on the product.

And for that, they succeed as easily as taking a selfie.