[bmurphy1976]

The appliance makers are particularly insidious. They have cheapo brand and luxury brand, but luxury brand is often just slightly modified cheapo brand. As people get wise to this, suddenly luxury brand becomes the new cheapo brand and ultra-luxury brand is the new must have luxury brand. Cheapo brand goes away (end of life!!) so time to upgrade!

At least (for now) if you buy a Samsung or LG you know who to be pissed off at.

[dylan604]

It is weird how things have flipped, but at the same time makes sense if you look at it from the bean counter's view. It used to be that companies would start with the luxury brand. These would cost premium prices, and would last in a time frame in line with their prices. They would then take features away (or just disable them) to make the lower tiers. Sometimes this meant replacing a metal something with a plastic something. The prices would be cheaper reflecting the missing options. It might not last as long, but it was a fraction of the price. Now, it seems like everything is just a cheap plastic something, and the entire thing is cheap enough to just buy a new whole thing instead of repairing the broken component. The prices are now in the middle pushing back up towards the premium pricing, but for much lower quality product.

[NeedMoreTea]

Makes sense if you don't mind killing the golden goose. Same sales with far more profit, but only until public perception catches up with the reality that the big brand is now as bad, or worse, than some cheap competitor.

Sometimes you only need to buy the reformulated market leader once to realise there's no reason to ever buy it again.

[NeedMoreTea]

Vehicles too. Buy the same bearing where the price depends on whether it comes in a VW, Audi or Porsche packet. Touareg vs Cayenne.

Trust may turn out to have been a 20th century concept.