Can't really judge a service by their marketing. A company might have kick-ass benchmarks but a shitty site. Look at Linode. Their site design looks like it's still 2005.
What sustains Apple is innovation and design — As long as they have both I don't think the price point matters.
People want to be unique but they also want to be trendy. You're either hipster (want to be different), mainstream (want to be trendy and buy the iProducts) or in the middle (don't care what you buy as long as it's a tablet).
Apple gets in trouble when their product resembles a competing product. This is either because Apple stole ideas or the competing company stole ideas. It's not about who invents a specific feature first. What's important is who comes to the market first and whether the idea is just another feature or if it's innovative.