Here's a handy recipe for your friend: go to a blind tasting. This way, they will probably find out that they really can't tell a $15 coffee from a $150, or a $500 machine from a $ 5,000 one.
Works like a charm with wine: I know a lot about it, can maintain a conversation for hours, but will never buy anything above $50/bottle except for a gift.
I would understand people's craving for pixel perfection, smooth 120Hz scrolling, etc, if we had nothing else to want. But I believe that we are now in a totally different era when overall software quality is degrading and we lack some basic stuff here and there, even in the apps of multi-billion-valued companies. In this situation UX should be much more important than UI.
I am not a Microsoft hater; in fact, I have been using Microsoft products since MS-DOS 3.3. But Outlook and its ecosystem are a horrible shit show and an indicator of terrible decision-making.
Google Workspace is an infinitely better productivity framework; there's no space for discussion here.
Smartphones aren't getting cheaper and generally aren't getting better for the last 3-5 years. In fact, I hated replacing my 4-year-old perfectly functioning smartphone just because its battery degraded and the charging socket wore out.
The replacement was about 15% more expensive, inflation-adjusted, BTW.
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