The point in your last paragraph is important and worth emphasizing.
It is often said (as, indeed, in several comments here) that yes, perhaps the new cheap stuff is bad in various ways, but you can always pay more and get good stuff! But in many cases, that is simply false: you cannot pay more (for any even remotely reasonable values of “more”) and get good stuff, because what you get if you pay more is simply the same bad stuff but with more fancy features (or the same bad stuff but from a name brand, or the same bad stuff but with a superficially elegant design, etc., etc.).
Let’s say I look at some inexpensive thing and say: “This does everything I want; alas, it is unreliable, prone to breaking or otherwise failing, is of a poor build quality, does not quite perform to specifications, etc. I would like a thing that is no more ‘advanced’ than this—no fancy features, no exotic accessories, nothing more than what this cheap one’s got—except that it should be good; it shouldn’t break easily, it should be of a superior build quality, it should reliably perform as advertised, etc.”
Nine times out of ten, this desire will never be satisfied. Your choices are “cheap crap” or “expensive crap”.
If you know that the cheap thing will break, and the expensive thing has a 50% chance of being solid and a 50% chance of being the cheap thing in disguise in a way that you can’t immediately tell the difference before the sale, the expensive thing looks far less attractive… which in turn means it’s less likely to be sold, and places making an expensive solid product end up doing worse. (But places making an expensive cheap thing in disguise still do well.).
(To which the common response is “just look at reviews/brand history/etc”, and the common counter-counter response being to note that just because the version sent to reviewers was good/the brand used to be good doesn’t mean that the version in front of you is good.)
(To which the common response is “just look at reviews/brand history/etc”, and the common counter-counter response being to note that just because the version sent to reviewers was good/the brand used to be good doesn’t mean that the version in front of you is good.)
That would be a good counter-counter response in a (slightly) more reasonable and sane world than ours, yes. In our actual world it’s actually much worse than that; the response in reality is more like “the brand history means very close to nothing because of rampant extreme short-term thinking, the reviews are likely to be fraudulent/shills/etc., and sometimes the reviews you’re shown are for an entirely different product but you won’t be able to tell because this fact is intentionally obfuscated, and just in general the sellers have every incentive to make it maximally difficult for you to acquire accurate information about the market and the products in it, and no one is able and willing to make them behave honestly”.
The point in your last paragraph is important and worth emphasizing.
It is often said (as, indeed, in several comments here) that yes, perhaps the new cheap stuff is bad in various ways, but you can always pay more and get good stuff! But in many cases, that is simply false: you cannot pay more (for any even remotely reasonable values of “more”) and get good stuff, because what you get if you pay more is simply the same bad stuff but with more fancy features (or the same bad stuff but from a name brand, or the same bad stuff but with a superficially elegant design, etc., etc.).
Let’s say I look at some inexpensive thing and say: “This does everything I want; alas, it is unreliable, prone to breaking or otherwise failing, is of a poor build quality, does not quite perform to specifications, etc. I would like a thing that is no more ‘advanced’ than this—no fancy features, no exotic accessories, nothing more than what this cheap one’s got—except that it should be good; it shouldn’t break easily, it should be of a superior build quality, it should reliably perform as advertised, etc.”
Nine times out of ten, this desire will never be satisfied. Your choices are “cheap crap” or “expensive crap”.
Imperfect information is rather important here.
If you know that the cheap thing will break, and the expensive thing has a 50% chance of being solid and a 50% chance of being the cheap thing in disguise in a way that you can’t immediately tell the difference before the sale, the expensive thing looks far less attractive… which in turn means it’s less likely to be sold, and places making an expensive solid product end up doing worse. (But places making an expensive cheap thing in disguise still do well.).
(To which the common response is “just look at reviews/brand history/etc”, and the common counter-counter response being to note that just because the version sent to reviewers was good/the brand used to be good doesn’t mean that the version in front of you is good.)
Yes, this is an important point.
That would be a good counter-counter response in a (slightly) more reasonable and sane world than ours, yes. In our actual world it’s actually much worse than that; the response in reality is more like “the brand history means very close to nothing because of rampant extreme short-term thinking, the reviews are likely to be fraudulent/shills/etc., and sometimes the reviews you’re shown are for an entirely different product but you won’t be able to tell because this fact is intentionally obfuscated, and just in general the sellers have every incentive to make it maximally difficult for you to acquire accurate information about the market and the products in it, and no one is able and willing to make them behave honestly”.
Anyway, yes, I agree with your overall point.