> I think a lot of this is a lack of perspective - everyone wants better things but nobody actually wants to pay for it.

I think that's part of it, but I also think it's largely an issue of information asymmetry. Brands used to be a proxy for quality, and price could also be a proxy for quality, but that is no longer the case. That means it takes significantly more effort to research a product category to find a good product and people don't want to expend that effort. I am one of those weird people that enjoys that research, so I'm often the one people in my friend group ask for product recommendations because they are more than happy to spend the money, just not the time.

It's a discovery problem at the end of the day. When all the existing indicators become unreliable and advertising is inundated with scams and frauds, there's no way for good products to connect to good customers, so /everyone/ suffers.