[pdimitar]

I live in country where shrewd salesmen know that people like me would pay extra for quality so they sell me crappy quality still, just for 3x the price.

So yeah, I started resorting to asking acquaintances with big families and also LLMs to desperately try to separate the wheat from the chaff.

It's not impossible and it's indeed doable, just not very quick.

[robocat]

The assumption is that price is supposed to reflect quality. Unfortunately as you say, too often price is a weak signal. And price often signals current fads/fashions rather than quality.

Non-monetary costs are often a better indicator because good quality does cost you more: more time, more expertise, more judgement, more homework.

Plus we usually have narrow needs, which are hard to match. Price reflects a single average market scale, not how a product/service fits our individual conditions.

Finding the right compromises is hard work.