And borrowing on your imaginary numbers, there also used to be good stuff that cost $100 that now costs $200 and people assume it will be good because it used to be, but the brand has been enshittified so that $200 product now has the same shitty quality as today’s $10 product with a fancier label.

People won’t buy higher quality and thus determine what is “good enough”, because good stuff that used to cost $10 is now $100

Inflation is only relevant for exposing more clearly the low quality bar of acceptance. You can test this by going to a rich area where consumers are flush with wealth. When the splash large amounts of money without restraint, your judgement of what quality is being tolerated is clouded because they are indulging and may not even give a shit about quality because they will be happy to have an excuse to upgrade again in a year anyway. It is precisely when inflation has impact that you can see the level of quality being accepted. Your past/present comparison is clouded by that same difference.

There’s no self-correction in the market because people don’t have the disposable income that would drive said correction.

The lack of money to waste is precisely what reveals what quality is being tolerated.

The $10 piece of crap, say, a pair of shoes or a backpack, will still sell, BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN’T FUCKING AFFORD A TENFOLD INCREASE FOR THE SAME QUALITY.

This doesn’t obviate the point that they decide what quality is acceptable. If they buy it, then they have sent a clear market signal that the quality is accepted. Full stop. That’s how capitalism works. We can hate capitalism all we want -- just as we can hate facts.

In my neighborhood, shoes and backpacks litter the streets, literally. Low quality is gratis. I now have a collection of functional backpacks that I paid /zero/ for. The shoes get rounded up by scavengers and sold at the local street market for ~$1—5. Wealthy people are content to spend absurd amounts on new shoes. Either way, when people spend money, they signal that the quality is good enough.

I have a high bar for quality on my everyday backpack. So I paid 3 figures for a good one. When I need another, I will just use the best of my scrounged collection. When I need to buy one, whatever I decide I will be sending a market signal indicating my quality tolerance. Which very well could be no transaction at all if the quality is too poor.

Sometimes I enter the marketplace for something and see garbage all around. I don’t even see sufficient quality in the highest budget stuff. In that case, I walk. That’s right. I choose to boycott because the quality is unacceptable. All recent washing machines are garbage now. I have been washing my clothes by hand for years now. Not all consumers are pushovers. But too many are and that’s the problem.

BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN’T FUCKING AFFORD A TENFOLD INCREASE FOR THE SAME QUALITY.

We are perhaps living in very different parts of the world. I’m surrounded by people who blow 3+ figures on a shitty new proprietary smartphone designed for obsolescence every couple years. Buying shit like smart watches, smart speakers, smart TVs that idk give them a few more pixels than before, .. lots of garbage they don’t need. Buying EVs instead of bicycles. That’s not an affordability problem. It’s consumerism with reckless disregard. This crowd sends a clear market signal that there are plenty of fools happy and waiting to be separated from their money for some low quality junk. And they ruin the marketplace for everyone else.

The ruin the consumerists cause when buying garbage in my part of the world also impacts your apparently poverty-stricken part of the world due to globalisation. Producers are getting a clear signal that their garbage is accepted.