That's still just about Macs being expensive.
No. It's also about
why, and what the value proposition trade-offs are.
A for price x with good value for money and B for price x without good value for money is a scenario where neither A nor B is more expensive, but one is more worthwhile.
Macs are more expensive than buying a Windows PC. It's a complaint as old as the first shipping Mac.
When something is more expensive than a similar product, it invites scrutiny and challenge. That's a good thing. As some Windows PCs move into Qualcom Snapdragon-based systems with more similar hardware issues compared to Apple Silicon Macs, we get better comparisons.
It kind of gets old after the 10th, or 100th time (by now millions of times) , and just sounds like pointless whining.
If it is so pervasive and repetitive that it gets that old, then a great many people have considered the issue and share similar laments. No, that does not sound like 'pointless whining' (a condescending insult), it sounds like a large consensus from a sizable portion of the user base.
Some companies even listen to customer feedback like that. Some even send out surveys with questionnaires seeking that sort of feedback because they consider it valuable. Not saying Apple does.
I see little evidence that endless forum complaints help pricing, after decades and millions of complaints.
Who knows what they'd offer and what they'd charge for it if nobody ever pushed back?
And none of us will ever have the 'fly on the wall' perspective that would come from being in some of their strategic meetings. That said, they do sometimes react to customer criticism.
I grant that Apple seems to have the attitude that the tail does not wag the dog, customers are the tail and Apple is the dog. That said, they did express some chagrin long after-the-fact over the 'trash can' version of the Mac Pro,
and argued defending selling Macs with only 8-gig RAM.
Apple cares when criticism gets sufficiently negative, vehement and widespread that it may damage their reputation. When enough people online raise enough of a stink about something, back it with credible rationales, and some of their more egregious practices become a running joke, even the mighty Apple on rare occasion may decide to...change!
Hockey puck mouse. Butterfly keyboards on laptops. Trash can Mac Pro. And now...8-gig RAM base.
