Not asking rhetorically. What exactly is it you’re suggesting these “quality conscious” consumers do?
Markets and naked capitalism as solutions go these issues have proven ineffective. This article is evidence of it. And all you suggest is some naive, Econ 101 platitudes.
The reality is much more nuanced than what you're suggesting. The reality is that people don't care as much, and that producers aren't as stupid/greedy as you make them out to be. Their buying patterns are what economists call a revealed preference. Sure, if you ask them, people will all say that they want the best-quality products. Turns out though (and not just there, but everywhere) that in reality people want a mix between quality, affordability, perception, and other things.
(oh, and suggesting that an article in the Guardian of all places is "evidence" of anything is laughable)
Because that's illegal?
there are shops in my city that do exactly that, but the markup is more like 105%.
On the contrary. You're mostly making up that there actually is a huge demand for higher priced, higher quality products there, while the fact that no one has gone for that supposed huge and very available market speaks against that being true. That wishes of a small minority are not being catered for doesn't prove anything.
Articles that don’t cite statistical data but rather anecdotes aren’t “evidence” of anything. That’s not what evidence is. What they really reflect is minorities projecting their views onto the majority. For example, I personally find web business models perplexing. Why would you want to watch advertising and data mining when you could just pay $50 a month or whatever for content? But I resign myself to the fact that I’m a minority and people really do prefer that insanity to honest monetary transactions.