

Yeah, it’s more of a late stage capitalism “luxury” where the difference isn’t so much in the quality as in the price because people conflate “price” with “quality” and “desireability”.
And I do understand it, at least to a degree. I try to do research on more expensive items or ones I’m looking for quality in, but it’s kinda exhausting, and often a cycle of “I want thing, see it in store and remember I want it, look at options, no idea which (if any) are decent and which suck, start looking online, decide I don’t want to do this right now, move on, forget to do research, repeat next time I’m at that store”.
The easy mode of doing that would be look at options, assume cheapest ones suck, most expensive is too much, get one of the ones a little cheaper. At which point, the seller just needs to set a higher price to get a sale on the crappy ones.




Going for less known names can also help, as they are trying to build/maintain a reputation in addition to sales.
IKEA is an interesting brand because it spans from incredibly cheap to nice quality, and personally, I find the cheapness is more in the material selection than the design. Like the furniture I got from them at my last place all survived the move to my current place, even the one I got frustrated with and stopped caring if it made it when taking it apart, it still stands solid today. They are one of the few that has decent value, though their prices can get pretty high at the high end.