Apple Watch Series 8 drops to $279 as Series 9 launches with modest upgrades

As Apple's newest wearables arrive with incremental refinements, the devices they replace have quietly become something more interesting than hand-me-downs — they've become arguments about value. In Echo Harbor and beyond, the ritual of the product launch now carries a shadow economy: the moment a new thing is announced, the old thing becomes a bargain. This is the quiet philosophy of the upgrade cycle — not that the new is better, but that the gap between new and good enough is rarely as wide as the price suggests.