Why pay so much?

Lololololol.
You think a cable sales person is trustworthy?
Lol.
Lololololol.
Okay.
I see we don't see eye to eye on this.

Hopefully I made people think differently about their hobby
Thanks for your time.
- Andy

funaudiofun,

"You think a cable sales person is trustworthy?"

Being taken advantage of does not depend on some cable salesperson’s trustworthiness. It depends on buyer’s gullibility. Salesperson has relatively little to do with it.

Back to your initial question about why people buy what you may consider "expensive cables". Because they often look better than cheap ones. Simply for the looks.

I’m just saying, that it’s a herd like mentality. That if several people are willing to pay $1,000-50,000 for wiring that companies will sprout up to take advantage of consumers fears that they aren’t hearing the music and movies the way they supposed to.
If no one would shell out $30,000 for the high end Audioquests Dragon Zero and Bass, they wouldn’t disappear like how your favorite fast food company would disappear if they had to cut margins 99%. They would be out of business in 1 week.
But if the hifi crowd refused to spend money on anything that weren’t 100% margins or less - there would still be AudioQuest Dragon Zero and Bass, they’d just charge $300 instead of $30,000.
They can afford to not have these margins. For the ignorant audiophile ( no offense - just a lack of knowledge and information and understanding of whats going on), they don’t know this. And would many companies close doors?
Probably.
But do you need 1,000+ wiring companies? Or just a few good ones.
Because if you guys weren’t willing to fork over your wallet for "hearing beyond just the notes" of music, the hifi cables wouldn’t disappear, they’d just be affordable. Because where there is a market, there 100% of the time nearly there is a product.

Now what do you have to say to that glupson?
Lol.
In good fun.

If those companies close doors, where would the workers go?

You are working with the premise that people who buy "expensive" cables do not want to pay. Some people do.

Actually, I would bet that nobody who buys such cables minds paying for them. It is not that cable companies are going door to door and are making people buy cables at gunpoint. Buyers come to them.

Just do not buy "expensive" cables and you have done your part in rectifying this horrible injustice in the Universe. At some point, we will all follow and sleazy companies will be out of business. The future is yours although in the present you are a little too radical.

The same thing goes for eveything in audio. Speakers? The really good ones uses 3rd party drivers. The crossovers, drivers and cabinets cost to build cost under $500 for even the 200 lb monsters. Do the best speaker drivers that costs a few dollars to make deserve to be $100-250?
Heck yeah, that’s research and development. But the cost of designing a speaker and the crossover designs...people design these in their garages and basements for free for free. They don’t deserve 5,000%+ margins. If people weren’t willing to shell out $50,000 for Accuton Driver based speakers? They’d drop to $2,500, and they’d still make bank. The cost to build a speaker is cheap, and only the drivers deserve a high price for research and development, but the best speakers in the world shouldn’t cost more than $3,500. But, I get you have these quad diamond tweeter and quad diamond midrange 1,000 lb monoliths, those are probably $10k.
Would the market shrink from. 1,000+ companies to like 5 or 6? Just like the TV industry? Yeah, and it’d still work with many people making a lot of money. When there’s a market, there’s a product.
Same for receivers, processors and amplifiers.
That all cost under $100 to make.

You guys looking for the high end, screw yourselves out of it, by be willing to pay these companies products in their weight in Gold. Sometimes literally, lol.