You see the prices on lightning headphones? Cheapest one Apple offers is $150. Searching for best cheap bluetooth headphones finds a bunch clustered around $100.
I lose headphones like crazy, and I'm not an audiophile, so my average spend on headphones is under $20
Up until today there's been minimal demand for Lightning headphones. Once the iPhone 7 is released I'd expect cheap Lightning headphones to be pretty common, just like you can find both Lightning and Micro-USB charging cables near the cash register at pharmacies today.
I use (and keep) my headphones for years and I am an audiophile. This is a non-starter for me as well. I don't want to buy new $200 headphones after Apple inevitably obsoletes lighting and Bluetooth leaves a lot to be desired in terms of lag, pairing, charging, and audio quality.
But forcing a $200 purchase is. Your parent already has good headphones they like, has had them for years, and none of those headphones needs replacing because they broke down or are obsoleted. The $200 purchase your parent mentions is because of Apple obsoleting something.
>Also $200 isn't that expensive when talking about headphones
It absolutely is. Is it more common now than a few years ago? Yep. But it's still expensive, especially when there are excellent options below $50 and serviceable ones around $4-5.
Clearly, though my every day pair are HD650s for home/office work. Well worth the $300, but also not something I plan on ever upgrading or replacing. $200 headphones are a luxury item and, I believe, objectively expensive.
If they provide excellent sound over BT, maybe they're worth the $200 (160?), but they'd still be expensive.
The Motorola S305's are some of the best Bluetooth headphones I've ever owned and they're usually ~$20-25. Comfortable, good battery life, decent enough audio quality, build quality that lasted 3 years. After that time the foam pads started falling apart, so I ordered another pair a few weeks ago.
There are other similar models around the same price. You don't have to spend $100+ to get similar audio quality to $20 headphones that happen to have Bluetooth as well. Bluetooth chips are stupid cheap these days, pairing that with a small battery really doesn't add much to the cost of normal cheap headphone equipment and you'll find plenty of pairs <$40.
I lose headphones like crazy, and I'm not an audiophile, so my average spend on headphones is under $20