[Greed]

But are any of those things a strong enough motivator to warrant the average person paying several hundred dollars more for an incrementally improved device?

You haven't really made a strong argument for why a user might upgrade specifically and immediately for those features, besides that they exist. Certainly the average person is upgrading over time as components break or fail, but why is it that you think the average person is still upgrading regularly for any of the things you listed?

[ericmay]

The OP wrote:

> I have a 6 year old phone that was cheap when it was new, and it still runs 100% of what I use my phone for, and most people use their phones for, perfectly.

They made the claim, you should ask them for evidence instead.

Given that Apple continues to create new features that are only available on certain iPhones and market those functions and features heavily, we can guess that people buy new iPhones at least in part for those features.

We also know that not all features available on an iPhone today are available on all iPhones. For example, the original iPhone doesn't have the chipset required to do tap-to-pay transactions. The iPhone 11 (I'm guessing it's 6 years old and the one OP was referring to) can't play whatever the latest games are with the same performance with respect to graphics and battery life, as another example. While I don't care, many people do and spend quite a lot of money gaming on their iPhones. Think about all the new accessories that people use as well.

I don't want to suggest that I necessarily find those things valuable or that they are a reason to upgrade, but it seems very weak to suggest that other people don't value those things.