The nice thing about brands is it (used to be) a good standin for quality.

Costco is still sort of like this for me. If I need $thing, I can just go get whichever brand of thing Costco is selling. There are usually only a couple choices, and they're generally pretty decent and good value.

In the absence of branding like this, I need to go make an informed decision on every purchase, in product areas I'm often not particularly familiar with or qualified to judge. The dazzling array of widgets available in whatever category doesn't help if I can't tell a good from a bad widget, can't trust online reviews, and can't take "made by $brand_i_know" as a badge of it probably being fine.

I agree we've lost this to a large degree, but I do think it's more of a shame than you seem to be suggesting.