> The wealthiest enjoy those just as much as the rest of us

You are thinking about it the wrong way around. The less wealthy get to enjoy many things as much as the most wealthy.

Can the ultra-wealthy get better iPhones, iPhone Apps, gaming consoles or games? Movies? Can they get better friends? The ultra-wealthy might get 10% longer life (mostly due to preventative measures available to all but they get better advice; somewhat due to better healthcare).

There's a lot in modern society that the most wealthy get little improvement over what the middle class get. The very wealthy can pay for improvements (better ping time, better training, better live seats, more choice).

Many investments are available to the hoi polloi e.g. stock market on Robinhood. But often not private shares. Crypto is available to virtually everyone equally (a wild ride).

In the past only the wealthy could enjoy the intellectual output of civilisation: music, theatre, art, science, even books for a while. Now the best works are often available to even the poorest in the world (pirating is cheap).

The areas I think where the wealthy have advantages are: 1: avoiding time wastes, 2: spending their time however they choose, 2: customized services provided by people, 3: complex status games (owning a football club), 4: privacy, 5: private jets. I'm not part of the set so I'm not particularly sure. Elon rabbiting on about playing a game demonstrates that he isn't much better off for that particular measure than some poor basement dwelling cheating gamer.

There are human areas where they get little marginal improvement over the middle class. Bad taste is difficult to fix. Wealthy status symbols don't help much, and often they want popular status symbols available to all.

And it seems to me the wealthy proportional waste their money on their status games as much as anyone else. Superyachts? Property overcapitalisation? In-game diamonds or skins?

The most important status symbol is association with high status individuals. There are many elite (regardless of their wealth or political status) that would be shunned by many celebrities.

Personally I think having more money would mostly give me better booby prizes. I'm not chasing more because I have enough to do many human things that matter to me. In New Zealand my friends with less money don't have radically worse lives: they travel but travel less, they eat out but much less often, they waste more time dealing with financial issues. The working friends have to spend time working but they often seem to get heaps of personal satisfaction from their work. Some friends don't work (retired, jobless, sickness beneficiaries) and they mostly spend their time on whatever they want but perhaps can't afford enough hobby/sports supplies.

The wealthy tech elite fawning over Trump publically demonstrates that the US government still has power over them. We're not yet ruled by those with the most money. I hope the US pulls finger and gets their government working more for the common good. It would be nice if it was the common world good (from the outside the US seems to trend towards sociopathic levels of selfish behavior - sorry for the label misuse).