I don't think any of this stuff is about "need".For me it's all about want.My old,soon-to-get-thrown-out,laptop can cover most of my computing needs,such as browsing the internet,watching movies,listening to music and editing documents.However,I'm buying a powerful new PC so that I can do all the stuff I "want" to do.I want to game,I want to be able to study all anatomy models for med school without having a neural breakdown and I want to do everything I could do previously at many times the speed I used to.And yes,I'm willing to spend north of 2k for all that.If I have this kind of money,I'll spend it.If not,I'll spend what I can.Simple as that.
In my opinion,it all boils down to how high you price your own desire."Need" is a word widely used for stuff that has nothing to do with need.You need food,you don't need fillet mignon.You need water,not cola.You need a phone,not an iPhone.Similarly,you need a PC,just not a 10k beast with quad Titans.
Also,people NEED to find some common sense on the matter of computers.I mostly see the extremes : Those who spend thousands of dollars/euros per year on their PC and those who won't spend anything unless their current hardware permanently fails.The middle ground is the widest and least densely populated.Well,we don't need these 2 extra FPS that the new super-wow GPU variant of a GPU variant offers,nor do we need a 50 core CPU and 128GB of RAM.However,I think having a pleasant time using the PC instead of being treated with frustration every time you turn it on is very important to spend at least some money on the PC every once in a while.Balance is everything here...