Agree, but there’s also an element of consumer irrationality. Lower price + lower quality means you can buy more of what you want now, even if it means that you’ll end up with net less of what you want in the long term.

Most consumers, me included, are not making purely rational decisions based in price and quality, even in domains where they are qualified to judge quality.

True. Maybe the hidden part of the equation is "effort". Modern marketing strategy is to "flood the zone" with misleading information and half-truths so as to make the very act of making a rational selection exhausting.