If it makes you happy, is it really wasted? People waste money on a lot of shit they don't need, but if they're financially responsible and not going into debt and becoming homeless, who's to say they shouldn't be buying overpriced audio gear? If people stopped spending their disposable income on stuff they don't need to survive, the economy would collapse.

There a difference between overpriced and snake oil. If you claim that your cables "gives the breath-taking experience of ‘being there’ thanks to the purity of its conductors and their precise geometry" your firmly into the snake oil territory. If you sell an amp with hand picked components to achieve 0.001% THD at 100w on a 4KHz test tone, it's probably overkill and overpriced but unlike the cables it's not fraud adjacent.

It is a negative as it is creating a market for deception, by paying for it they are giving money to people who specialize in deception who otherwise would have to do something else. These people will continue improving their abilities to take advantage of the borderline credulous who would have otherwise gone unexploited.

Perhaps in the best case it is less bad than what other things they would have spent it on.

I think misleading claims should be headed off with strong consumer protections. The predatory entrants in this industry should be shut down, leaving the others who do make expensive gear but actually put effort into proper engineering rigour, testing, and marketing that accurately represent the properties of their goods.

It's not the same. Someone buying expensive fashion/watch etc generally knows it's not functionally better. They're buy because they like the style or as a signal to show of wealth.

Someone buying cables like those in the article falsely believes the cables do a better job. They don't. Other things related to audiophiles are subjective. You can like the sound of a tube amp and decide to spend on it. That's fine. No deception. But there's a long list of things many audiophiles are decieved on.

What is a level of bad in "economy collapse" statement?

Buying snake oil is not financially responsible though. Being able to afford it doesn't change that.

Society would probably be better off if this money was otherwise spent on infrastructure projects, public research, etc.

If there's some audiophile out there who loves the luxurious look and feel of their RCA cables, by all means let them enjoy it. My sense is that most people view this as a utilitarian aspect of their setup and believe they're getting some benefit in performance or QC for their money. If they're not, they'd be happier spending the money on improving the looks of the parts people actually see.

Nobody spends money - or time - on unnecessary computer hardware or software.