I agree with you that a lot of brands should be ashamed of their price/quality ratio, but of course the world isn't always black and white (expensive is bad Vs cheap is good). I have bought some pretty cheap shoes for work where the soles were disintegrated after a few months and the safety nose (whatever you call it in English, not my native language) was already showing through the rubber. This meant they didn't met safety standards anymore for the places I work and I had to throw them away. Then I bought a more expensive (literally double the price) German brand and I already have them for over a year with little wear (so they are already lasting more than twice the cheap ones). Then I have also had an expensive Italian brand that didn't even last two months before the heel padding was completely gone. The problem I have with cheap brands (and especially no-name) is that whenever I buy them and they turn out to be good, the next time I go to the shoe store they're suddenly out of the assortment (seems to happen a lot here in Europe, especially the weird Amazon UUKKO/UFELLGOOD brands etc.). This means I'm taking a gamble each time I buy the no-name brand.

I have had similar experiences with sneakers. Some brands are truly terrible regardless we there they are expensive or cheap.

What I'm trying to say is that if you find a cheap brand (the 25-40 euro range) a lot of the time here they either become expensive eventually or they somehow are taken out of the stores assortment for whatever reason. Buying a slightly more expensive or expensive brand at least usually gets me reliable results. And I know that most of the time the brand will still exist.

Also people spend hundreds of dollars on shoes and then spend their lives consumed with not stepping anywhere dirty, with the shoes they paid more for than a bombproof pair of boots.