Mate, all I'm getting from this is that you suck at budgeting and keeping your electronics from breaking.

I've had two computers since 2014 that were upper middle range on completion, both for a little over 1000$ each time, with a very minor and separate cost for peripheral pieces breaking at a separate rate. The only part that's broken in that time is a single HDD, which was only a minor loss as it was small and incredibly old.

I only even bought the new one because I hated the case I had and found a better deal building from scratch rather than swapping out a bunch of aging parts.

Also the idea that anyone can take their random internet box and make it a gaming machine is pretty unrealistic

Yes that's why the point was "spend 500$ on a shitbox with minimal use or capability or 1200$ on a decent gaming one" Which means the final total is 700$, not 1200. Or only about 100-200$ above a console with far more versatility. Its the wet boot theory in a perfect example.

Its as simple as smartly investing and using your money with forward planning instead of constantly needing to buy and upgrade random parts that you've destroyed or find is "outdated" over and over. Spend the money once and then you can not spend a dime for a long while, which gives you the necessary savings to spend on the next one instead of constantly being nickle and dimed yearly.

If your friends are spending double that, then they aren't nuts. They are retarded and probably buying things like Alienware which are well known to buy massively overpriced in exchange for "brand and aesthetics" instead of any quality. Or paying to be the top 1% of hardware, which will always be a fool's investment.

Again, this isn't an industry wide problem. I think you guys are just bad with money and don't understand your experience isn't universal.