>If something that costs $20 and shouldn’t break for 4 years, breaks in 2 weeks, you effectively paid a high price for a $2 product.

not true if all the other knives on the market at that price have the same performance, in which case that's just "the price of such a knife." in order to have paid too much there needs to be cheaper options with the same or better performance.

> in order to have paid too much there needs to be cheaper options

“Paid too much” from a consumer standpoint doesn’t need to have viable cheaper options. It’s about consumer expectations and results. If eggs in the grocery store cost $20/dozen, and you as a producer are taking a loss at that price because your producer costs arw $2/egg, consumers will still say they are paying too much. Because the expectation is coming from a market where a dozen costs $5-8.