>Which is also a self-fulfilling prophecy... we'll have to buy the cheapest possible stuff because we'll be paid miserably, and we'll have to be paid miserably because we're buying cheap stuff... another catch-21.99.
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>Give over- everybody here can afford to pay for a really good pair of shoes rather than buying pair after pair of poor quality ones. We will all do so again when the value proposition becomes more obvious. IMHO.

Being a telecommuter for six years, I can't really say much about shoes - my footwear lasts.

But you're right, there are some goods where we just want quality,whereas in a lot of other areas we don't care, don't have the criteria... or simply gave up looking for anything better and settle for good enough. Like jeans - they are treated with some acid or something, to give them that worn out look, which also makes them last no more than six months, when a tear will appear somewhere, usually on the knee. These things used to be tent cloth, sturdy and lasting for at least a couple of years. I still have two pairs I bought in 1998 - back home, from one of the forgery manufacturers in Novi Pazar, and they're still stronger than any other pair I have. But I don't go looking for better quality, because it's really not important to me. Buying them is boring, so I'm prone to just grab the first pair that fits me. For some other stuff (like the hardware on which I work, cheese, bread, coffee, chairs) we want good quality; for other, we don't care to spend time looking for it (small appliances, T-shirts, glassware, flatware, VHS tapes, pens, razors, brushes).

But that's today, and that's personal preferences. The subject was the overall trend - and, mind you, so much of low quality but high planned obsolescence merchandise wouldn't be produced for long if it wasn't selling. And it's everywhere. If you want to buy quality, you need to know where to find it. It isn't something you just pay for, you have to find it first.