That's certainly part of the problem e.g. with airline seats. But there's also the issue that quality attributes can be difficult for casual customers to discern.

Ethical attestations about treatment of workers, animals, and environment are not always honest. Design flaws may not become apparent until the product has been in use for some time and longevity may only become apparent after many years of use, by which point the newer iterations may be qualitatively different.

It used to be that one could invest time in identifying quality brands, but many brands now are simply a temporary asset to be quickly squeezed of value.