You are literally proving my point.

Like someone with a Rolex convincing themselves they haven't just wasted a bucket load of money when a time keeper from Argos would've been fine.

No one thought spending £800 of a pushbike was necessary twenty years ago. It isn't that technology has changed, it's that consumer attitudes have - and that's been stoked by cycling becoming a money making industry - yesterday's luxuries today's "necessities".

I have a £199 cycle and have had it for maybe 6 years and it is absolutely fine. Sure, adjustment are required now and then, but the idea that bikes in that price range are "junk" is a weird outcrop of conspicuous consumption.

The average person almost certainly does not need to spend more than £250 on a pushbike. Of course, everyone is entitled to spend wtf they want to, but the self rationalisation are only convincing to others who have been hoodwinked.