Could it be possible that there is a spectrum of choices which represent a trade-off between cost and quality? What if both authors took an already understood and practiced idea in our culture and took it to an absurd extreme? Every person will desire different quality for different items. Even Dustin Curtis doesn't get "the best" of all of his items. He says that he does, but if you keep reading, what he really means is getting "the best for him." That's what everyone does.

People just pay for as high of a quality as is justified to them by the price. Assuming perfect knowledge, that's theoretically what all consumers do. Different people desire different quality for different items, and have different amounts of money.

I love listening to music at work, so I did a lot of research and got a nice pair of $150 headphones with a $30 headphone amp. They're wonderful. Well, well worth the purchase price to me. Could I have paid $1500 dollars and gotten a higher quality set of headphones? Sure. But who the fuck would spend $1500 on headphones? It just wasn't justifiable to me. Some people will buy the $1500 headphones. Some people will buy the $15 headphones. None of these people are following some abstract philosophy. They're just regular consumers in a capitalist society, buying what makes the most sense for them.