The old Apple TV are kind of cheap but when they added the ability to download apps and then a 4k version the price went up a lot. A lot of that had to do with the BT rechargeable remote that I think is $80 by itself. I have 4 of the more expensive ones and one 4k. They are all various ages but they all work awesome with the oldest one being 5 years old and the newest one being 3 years. The phones are rather expensive however, I had my iPhone 6 Plus 3ish years and gave it to my sister who used it till last year. Apple is still doing security updates for it but it can not run the latest OS. I have been using iPhone X for three years and I plan to use it till the wheels fall off. High end Samsung android phones are not any cheaper so I see no reasons to get something that is not compatible with my eco system. I like that my phone, computer, tv all work together to make my life more convenient it is a shame I did not wait for 4 months for the 2019 4-Runner so I had car play..
Overall I agree - the products are priced at a premium but to a large degree they are worth the extra money and mostly last a long time. Integration of the various devices has its own extra value too. Obviously that price/value estimation is an individual decision and everyone should make their own decisions.
I've tried enough of the other stuff - non-Apple TV, android tablets, phones, etc - that I know that sometimes (not always) the paper features or specs don't tell the story that many of them are just crap. I mostly haven't particularly liked any of the non-apple laptops I've used (for work mostly) but they are serviceable.
Even though I'm using an android phone, it's a bit specific to the one I'm using (oneplus) that was at a way better price / quality point than what apple was offering (or what I was willing to pay) at that specific time. I don't know if I'd make the same decision now. In the lower end phones, androids can also be really good value for money for those who don't have 'apple ecosystem' issues and I still use one for various temporary roles.
Heck, even some of apple's accessories are just objectively so much nicer and better - I got a very nice and serviceable keyboard (logitec?) recently, I think it was $25. My older apple keyboard was I think closer to $100 (no longer offered) and it is still SO much nicer; since I've had it for seven years or so, it was the better purchase by far. But sometimes cheap and serviceable is what you need.
Analogies are always wrong in some way but you don't hear such persistent whinges about the premia luxury carmakers charge, which is WAY more money (or furniture or house fixtures of various kinds). It's a personal choice, sometimes the cheapo version is the better choice, sometimes the more expensive is worth the money. Or restaurants: I'm amazed sometimes friends/acquaintances will complain about apple charging a couple-five hundred dollars more for a computer or phone that they'll use for 2-4 years (and they'll use it
all the time), and then drop a couple hundred bucks on a single dinner (and not even a particularly fancy dinner).
Again, no criticism, everyone makes the choices they want to make, budgets are different, etc. I just don't find the level of criticism to always be rational about apple's offerings - and to be honest, that applies to me, too, I've sometimes cheaped out in areas that I shouldn't (the airbook I'm using I really should have bought with twice the memory and quadruple the disk space - although the issue when I bought it was availability of custom build more than price, I would have paid a lot more if I knew I'd be using it this long).