I love this Andy Warhol quote that John Gruber uses in this Daring Fireball article:
What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.
I read an article recently (which I can’t seem to find now) about how class in America is becoming harder to define because their aren’t any key products that most people can’t afford. You used to be able to separate lower from middle class by whether or not a family had a telephone, or a TV, or air conditioning, etc. Even internet access and cell phones are becoming ubiquitous.