alt Hacker News14k? I know people who own more than 14k worth of fishing equipment ... not including any sort of boat. A family of four with any sort of hobby, say four sets of skis/boots/poles, will easily hit 14k on that hobby alone. I don't want to think about how much all my climbing gear would cost to replace.
Packing up everything into suitcases is all well and good for single IT workers moving between generic white-walled apartments. People with kids and hobbies have stuff that takes up space.
I’m sympathetic to the point you’re making – it wouldn’t be shocking for a moderately sized well-to-do family to have a bunch of expensive gear for some hobby – but I think you’re underestimating people’s abilities to do things on a budget. I think ski equipment could reasonably come to less than $1k pp, for example.