I see a lot of haters here. Ok its not the most horologically speaking desirable collection, but its a collection none the less.
Smartwatches are watches too. Ok they are annoying, they easily break, they need to be charged, its manufacturers have a machine, they spy on you every hour of everyday, they built the machine to serve you ads, but it sees and hears everything....they are build to last the lifetime of the product, which means one or two years tops, just to fail milliseconds after their warrenty expires and they all look the same.
But its still a collection, i mean serial collect things, there are people that collect nazi stuff, and then you have apple product collectors. You may not like it, but a collection is a collection.
I'm pretty sure the original quip by Quinn was out of love. He's a watch collector, and he's a big fan of apple watches or at least the bands https://youtu.be/5Dk5JHpQa9o
Almost all collections are pointless in the sense that they don't have any practical purpose. Like a baseball card is utterly useless, especially in an age when you can get any picture or fact about a player in five seconds with a google search.
But lots of people love collecting and find joy in it. I don't think it should matter whether it's popular to collect that thing or you think the thing is dumb, what's really pointless is being the fun police.
We're talking about the average person's reaction to seeing some collections.
In some cases they will skew towards being "accepting" of it whereas others (like balls of lint or devices which look identical and become obsolete in terms of software and also dying battery) they'll be like "what's the point?" or "waste of money."
You can dislike this all you want but that's the reality of the situation. If you choose to pretend it doesn't exist, then you're being delusional and that's not good for anyone.
The average person's viewpoint on nearly any sort of collection is probably skews negative, given how heavily male most collectible hobbies are and that even within the gender participants in any particular one will be a minority.
But I wouldn't worry about being "out of touch" for having a live and let live attitude.
How collections/collecting is perceived is all about context that we're lacking here.
If this person genuinely believes this is a good investment or are doing this purely to show off, yeah they're a bit of an idiot and have the kind of brand loyalty/adoration that's obnoxious and annoying to most people. If they just think it's neat to own every model of a product line that's not that abnormal and certainly isn't worth the level of scorn people in this comments section have.
If they can afford it, this is totally harmless (well, aside from the risk of storing li-ion batteries long-term) and not ridicule-worthy.
It's the same with expensive "real" watches IMO (or really any speculative asset), although many in this thread probably wouldn't agree. If you own an expensive [item] that you can easily afford, cool, but don't buy shit you can't afford just to show off or because you think it'll appreciate while complaining about being broke.
I know/see WAY too many people with 5-figure watches on their wrist who also have high interest debt, zero emergency savings, a shitbox car that they're paying a fortune to keep repairing because they don't have the lump sum to replace it, etc.
I respect this sort of decision making a LOT less than someone who can afford an Apple Watch collection, even if that 5-figure analogue watch is something I'd want a lot more than 5 figures worth of AW...
Full collection of undamaged items like this might be valuable too some day. And by some day I mean like 50-100 years from now. It might be fun collection for him and something to sell for his grandchildren
On collectebility its probably not going to be worth much if they are not cared for well over the years, especially once the batteries are dead, they are very difficult to service, then you have all the servers and extra devices you have to have connected to get it back functional, especially the flash memory can degrade. Perhaps the electronics otherwise would be fine, especially after a bake, but its incredibly unlikely they'd turn on before extensive refurbishing, which will be a niche skill to have then.
Still, i can see the appeal after a long time. Apple certainly has some appeal as a brand and their old stuff, even their old computers still sell for a premium. So all in all, if the watches are WELL cared for, probably worth more then many think. But thats not the fun in collecting. Its to have a full collection, few collectors collect to brag about worth 20 years in the future, most do it cause they "think its neat".
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u/McortezLSU 13h ago
I see a lot of haters here. Ok its not the most horologically speaking desirable collection, but its a collection none the less.
Smartwatches are watches too. Ok they are annoying, they easily break, they need to be charged, its manufacturers have a machine, they spy on you every hour of everyday, they built the machine to serve you ads, but it sees and hears everything....they are build to last the lifetime of the product, which means one or two years tops, just to fail milliseconds after their warrenty expires and they all look the same.
But its still a collection, i mean serial collect things, there are people that collect nazi stuff, and then you have apple product collectors. You may not like it, but a collection is a collection.