People in this thread LOL basically "I love capitalism when it benefits me but if it benefits a company it sucks!"
Free market. Apple just produces a damn good phone/marketing/culture it owns the market. They could STILL raise the prices by 20% and nothing would change. Look at Amazon and Microsoft - their phones were just utterly destroyed to the point of nonexistence.
People don't get it. It's not a phone. Most people barely use the fucking cellular in their phone for calls LOL. It's like a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. I use my phone for communication, media, knowledge, shopping, fitness, health (fuck mobile games tho). It's literally my life assistant. It holds information on my fuckin heart rate. I want Apple because I know that information is secure (at least WAY more secure than Android) and the quality of the phone is topnotch. Also, if anything goes wrong, there's an Apple store every where that has damn good customer service. Less tech savvy people can just stop by the Apple store in the mall and get help with trivial shit, it's unlike any other phone. They also last a damn long time. I have a 6s (3 years old now) and X, and 6s is going strong as F since they replaced the battery for free. The X is one year old, battery is 96% full charge compared to brand new.
Apple does a damn good job convincing people to upgrade every year (like the other thread) and I disagree with that practice but nonetheless. It's no surprise prices keep going up. No one is offering a better phone and better OS.