I think this is the wrong take.

If this was really the truth, the brand names wouldn't matter. But instead the brand ends up as the sole desirable target in the corporate sales.

I think the more likely answer is that being an expert judge on a product's quality is just very hard.

More so when you have to buy it before you can use it.

So people tend to trust brands they've had good experiences with, or heard others having good experiences with.

The greed here is in leveraging that trust to sell a shitty updated version of the product.

Exactly. I've lost count of the number of times I've found a brand I liked, only to see quality go downhill after the company tries to scale too quickly, gets bought out, goes public, etc.