I wanted to ask for long time this question, Why does this keeps happening?
Apple, Kagi, Vivaldi, news companies and even Google.
I started seeing a good amount of people who stopped caring about consumer rights/freedom and started to think and advocate for companies.
Even in non-brands cases, a lot of people buy the product with the highest price, because they think that it has a higher quality despite the fact that there is no necessary correlation between both.
How do I know that? I know a shop that buy cheap products and sell them with very expensive price tag, to my surprise they are making insane profits.
What is happening?
When people are unable to make a determination of quality based on actual information, or don’t have the time to do so, a lot of them default to expensive = good.
Think about it this way. Let’s say you wanted to buy a washing machine that would last you 10 years. You would do research, you’d possibly look up how good each company is based on previous models and how long these have lasted. And then you’d pick some model and buy it. You’re not buying it because it’s good, you’re buying it because their reputation tells you it might be good. But maybe that company decided to sell you cheap garbage this time (looking at you Nvidia). You would never know until it’s too late.
And this is why economics 101 is as useless as physics 101. In physics, they assume no friction. In economics, they assume perfect knowledge.
To help bolster your point, a saying I have heard my whole life is:
The implication is that you get a better product by paying a higher price. This saying is deep cultural meme (not the internet kind of meme, rather the Dawkins kind of meme) in the US. I have heard it used my whole life from fellow citizens.
This was true before the last 2-3 decades of globalisation, outsourcing, diversification, vertical integration, private equity, consolidation, and monopolization.
30-40 years ago most established sectors had a dozen brands across cheap, mid-market and expensive tiers. Most of the expensive brands were expensive because of consistent quality or niche. Nowadays the dozens of brands are owned by 2-4 multinationals, and there’s barely any brands left that haven’t been plundered and bled dry in the eternal race to the bottom for short term profit.
Pre GFC the US had 50-100 banks above a moderate size (can’t member). Post GFC there were like a dozen left; nowadays there’s probably half as many.
Very true, the quality of products has overall gone down, but the idea that “you get what you pay for” continues to persist regardless.