The same thing happens with real clothes, and those get made often by child labor. If some of that status signaling can be diverted to digital goods instead of contributing to child labor and deforestation from cotton farming it seems like a net win.
Or at least let's not pretend that this 21st century version of status symbol nonsense is really any different than what kids have always been doing. Some kid has a SNES and you only have a NES... Who's got Air Jordans? Who's got the best lunch? The best toys. Whatever. It's all the same. It's always been the same.
Hell I remember 1990 my elementary school installed a pencil machine. And you got like two random pencils with whatever graphics on them for a quarter (or maybe two quarters) and people were dumping money into that thing like they were going to hit the jackpot and become pencil barons of the midwest.
It's always been the same song and dance, kids are morons, and they are subject to the whims of whatever fad.