People are gullible and receptive to marketing influence as fuck these days.
This happens due to various factors:
Show off culture and one-upping each other.
Keeping up with the Joneses type of mentality. Your friend or their friend did it, so now you have to.
Social media possibly. I am waiting for this fad to be over. I am getting totally bored by everyone's amazing life on social media. Wooopeedooo.
Companies are getting better at marketing and controlling prices, more and more data is being produced by you which is available to analyse by these companies to know just how much you can afford.
Have a look at the whole food shrinkage and tatty-fication of products, you hardly see any decent products in the supermarket these days that are value for money. The bags are the same but there's a whole lot of air inside to make it feel full and a bit of the product (cirsp bags, chocolates, etc are some examples).
Also, there's a good reason why this country is called "Rip off Britain".
It just feels like it's getting more and more expensive yet there is no real justification for why things are stupidly expensive in this country.
People in this country are passive as fuck and bend over and take these things.