Because markets summarize information in a single variable, price, and thus make it difficult for consumers to observe the erosion of quality that goes along wi

Because markets summarize information in a single variable, price, and thus make it difficult for consumers to observe the erosion of quality that goes along with lower price. This is especially true if there is a concerted effort to pretend that the loss of quality is minimal or unimportant. Thus we end up with cheap crap everywhere; within a decade people have forgotten that they ever had a higher-quality product available and accept the new, lower standard as their baseline.