There's a wonderful blog post I want to find from years back about Starbucks switching from manual to automatic espresso machines, saying how the next generation of good coffee shops are probably getting their start by buying those manual machines cheap. And more generally, the cycle is that for a new brand having a few people who love you is more important than having people who don't hate you, so you take risks, and then at some point you're mainstream and that flips and it's more important to not be hated.
I'd add to that that brand reputation is monetisable and monetised. It's almost a playbook at this point: sell something high quality to people who are really into that thing, get a good reputation, then dilute the quality down and you can coast on that reputation for a while while selling cheaper versions at the original high prices to a much wider audience.
I don't know what the counter to this is, other than customers paying much more attention to when a brand changes their products, which would not be free for them.
I'd add to that that brand reputation is monetisable and monetised. It's almost a playbook at this point: sell something high quality to people who are really into that thing, get a good reputation, then dilute the quality down and you can coast on that reputation for a while while selling cheaper versions at the original high prices to a much wider audience.
I don't know what the counter to this is, other than customers paying much more attention to when a brand changes their products, which would not be free for them.