> The other part of the story is that a lot of formerly respectable quality brands now sell much poorer quality goods. I've observed this too. Somewhere, some

> The other part of the story is that a lot of formerly respectable quality brands now sell much poorer quality goods. I've observed this too. Somewhere, some marketing genius realized that brand reception is sticky, but changes to manufacturing processes can be rapid. There is thus an arbitrage opportunity. You start with a high-quality product with a beloved brand. You quickly change the factory to cheaply produce garbage instead. For some window of time, you can get people to buy these shitty products at a price commensurate with their brand perception and take a huge profit. Of course, brand perception is sticky but not infinitely so and eventually information catches up with reality. Then you've permanently destroyed a brand's reputation. But for a brief moment in time, you can create a lot of shareholder value at the minor expense of making crappy products and disappointing people.