[simplyluke]

In some ways. The asterisk on it that gets really frustrating for me is that there are often SKUs manufactures make for them that are actually worse in meaningful ways.

I almost bought my Bosche dishwasher from them last year, because it was a bit cheaper than getting it at lowes. And then I noticed buried in the detail that the reason for that was it didn't have an auto-open drying feature that was one of the main reasons I was buying the dishwasher.

I guess this is kind of the opposite side of it though. I had done a bunch of research, and if I'd wanted to skip that and just buy the dishwasher at costco I would have ended up with a very good option at a reasonable price, even if it didn't have every feature possible, and costco would have done the work of eliminating all the cheap builder-grade junk for me.

[bluGill]

Not all builder grade is junk. Apartment owners want a cheap appliance that will last for a long time. So mixed in that price range is both junk and high quality stuff with only the features you need (and generally intentionally ugly because even though the cost is the same nice is something people will pay for)