Expensive Is Just a Brand Now

You've probably heard this one before. It might have come from a parent, a teacher, or a friend who bought an expensive item and wanted to justify it. It goes something like this: A poor man buys a cheap pair of boots for a few dollars. They fall apart within a year, so he buys another pair. And another. Over five years, he spends far more than the man who bought one expensive, well-made pair up front. A pair that's still going strong to this day. And the lesson was simple: buying cheap is expensive. Buy quality, and you save money in the long run. Now swap the boots for a jacket, a phone, a kitchen knife, whatever you like. In my experience, that used to be true. I have old clothing still hanging in my closet, and it still holds together. Price and quality were correlated. If a company was going to charge you more, it needed to justify that premium with better materials, better construction, better everything. The market punished brands that didn't. But something changed along the…