Can I blame free market dynamics ? It's been a quite obvious trend since the 2000s. Audio components became commodities to reach bottom prices, no more middle class, good functionality is high end (which is now pushed to higher prices with branding like beats or devialet)
My kid has some wireless Beats headphones and she loves them because she likes how they look and they are very comfortable for her.
She might be able to find headphones that sound better, but she has never found any that also are comfortable and have good industrial design. At least not in the price range that Beats typically sell for.
That depends on your definition of functionality. Don't assume the purpose of Beats is to produce accurate audio. If the purpose is to make people feel good because they own the same headphones they saw some celebrity wear, they are apparently quite functional.
They added weights to their headphones to add a "quality" feel to them, because they were made of plastic and usually high-end headphones use metal in some places like the mounts and the headbands.
