AND so it came last week, to breathless excitement, the end of egalitarianism in information technology.

It came in the form of pricing announcements for Apple’s much anticipated watch, which will bring the tyranny of charging to a category (watches) previously known for running years without a top up.

Luxury comes in many forms. A decade ago, in Toronto, a female friend pointed me at the mothers with their kids in a suburban playground during a work day and sighed deeply.

“Look at that, that’s real money,” she said.

“How so?” I muttered.

“They’ve got themselves husbands so rich they can afford to not work, and they go to the gym every day to get their toned, post-childbearing bodies”.

With their watches Apple has also divided our society neatly up.

The watch for the masses (bearing in mind they all have the same inner workings) will be known as the “Apple Watch Sport” and will go for $579 at the larger 42mm size (incidentally, let the sportos ponder that “Sport” now means “for the masses”).

The next step up “Apple Watch” will go for $1629 in that size. Have no doubt its steel body will be effortlessly distinguishable from the “Sport” and its aluminium case.

Losing the sport tag will cost you a grand more.

Then we move up to real money; $24,000 for the top-of-the-line “Apple Watch Edition”.

Before anyone thinks this is too bonkers, go take a walk down to your nearest jeweller and take a look at the price tags. People pay a lot of money for watches, just so other people will know they have a lot of money.

With cufflinks, they’re pretty much the only socially acceptable form of jewellery for men.

Until recently IT products were ferociously egalitarian. Performance metrics were improving fast so they were the measure of value.

We compared the megahertz as if they were all roughly comparable (often they were not) and went for the highest number we could get at the lowest price.

An Apple Watch doesn’t need much performance. It’s just an adaptive display and input unit (its ability to accept data inputs is a big part of the design) that will be socially acceptable to have in view in polite company, as opposed to Google Glass spectacles, which may never be socially acceptable outside of nerd bars.

That “Sport” model will get you a grudging seat in such company.

Even with Apple products, up until this moment there had been a refreshing equality.

The richest man in the world had the same iPhone as anyone else who could qualify to get it on contract (anyone with a job, or a parent with a job). The richest people in the world really hated that.

That day is done now.

The top-of-the-line watch, in its gauche gold bling, exists purely to say: “I have lots of money”. It’s sometimes hard to convince people to come to the car park and check out your motor, and many young people today wouldn’t recognise a Rolex if you threw it at their heads.

This is great for Apple, paying for a few hundred dollars worth of precious metals to add $24,000 to the price.

Even getting a counterfeit from China won’t be the solution it used to be for the status anxious. The first time someone tries to send a “tap” to your watch to get your attention they’ll know that sucker isn’t real.

Status anxiety drives our society and now with a glance at others’ wrists we’ll know where they fit in.

Most of us aren’t going to like where we find ourselves.