The End of Brands as an Indication of Quality
Yesterday, my wife came into my office and said that water was dripping from the front of the window AC unit in her office. Not normal. So, I went in there (the horror!), and sure enough, it was true. I pulled off the front panel of the AC unit to see if I could fix it by clearing away some crud, but it was going to take more than that, and the old unit was about three years old.
So, I said, "I'll be back shortly." I went to the local Menard's hardware store, where I found a big stack of 5000 BTU window AC units almost at the front of the store. $129.00. So, I grabbed one, swiped my card at the self-serve check stand and headed back to the car. Less than an hour after her complaint, the new AC was in the window and pumping cold air into her office. All was well, once again.
Now, i could have pulled her old unit out, spent an hour or so disassembling it and cleaning out the crud, but that didn't seem worthwhile to me, so the old one will be out on the curb for the next scrapper who drives by.
Normally, I do some product research before buying an appliance like that, but there those cheap-ass "Denali" brand AC units were, piled high and on sale. So...
Later, I did the research I would normally do, after the fact. I did a Google Shopping search for 5000 BTU Window Air Conditioner. Sure enough, there was the one I had bought, available from many places and with many different brand names. There was a GE one, an Admiral one, and several other brands i didn't recognize. All had exactly the same front panel and controls. Same exact cheap-ass window AC unit. Just different brands and different prices. Every last one of them was made somewhere in Asia. I didn't look on mine, but it could have been China or South Korea, or Malasia. Who knows? They're all the same. Just different brands. You put them in your window, plug them in, and they blow cool air. Small AC units are not rocket science. The cheap-ass ones don't have a digital read-out or a remote control. Just a fan speed and mode switch and a thermostat with no temperature numbers on it. (Tip: to set the temperature, start with it on Max Cool and monitor the room temperature. When it gets to the desired temperature, turn the thermostat knob down slowly until the compressor shuts off. Then leave it there.)
All have the same compressor, condenser and evaporator. They're all identical. So, why is the GE one selling for over $200 and the "Denali" one selling for $129? The GE one is no better, nor does it have a longer warranty. it's identical to the one I bought. I knew that, which is why I didn't bother to do a comparison. Menards or Home Depot or Lowes would all have the same unit under one name or another, and all in a big stack, priced within $10 of each other. Walmart has the same one, too, with yet another brand name, for $119 this week. Menard's was closest to my house, so i went there.
See, I knew that they would have a big pile of them just inside the entrance. They always do this time of year. Three or four years from now, I'll probably be going back there for another one, and it will be in a stack in the same place. Maybe it will carry an ArcticAire brand name next time. Who can say?
Brand names are really no longer meaningful for low-priced commodity items. The cheap-ass products are all the same unit, just with different brand names and maybe colors. Low capacity window AC units are commodity items these days. But, you'll find the same phenomenon in every price range. Just look at the product. If the front panel looks exactly the same, it's the same thing. And most of them look exactly the same, if they have the same capacity and same features. They're all made somewhere else and only the brand name changes.
Most consumer products have become commoditized.
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it is the same for lawn mowers - 1 or 2 companies make just about all of them, especially the "low-end" ones.
One mower comes down the line and gets painted green for John Deere, yellow for Cub Cadet, orange for Husqkvarna, etc., etc.
Yeah, so much for "brand loyalty." 
Try slapping an AMD CPU on a motherboard that's made for an Intel, and you'll quickly discover that 'brands matter'.
AMD and nVidia-based graphics cards are also quite different ... however the exact same AMD or nVidia cards are sold with different names slapped on them ... while at the same time some makers build their own cards based on AMD/nVidia tech and nobody else makes the exact same card.
Also there are many PC power supplies that are identical but rebranded by multiple vendors ... while at the same time there's brands that build their own PSU's and don't license them to others, like Seasonic, Antec, and Corsair.
Branding has definitely become a complicated 'thing' in this day and age, as you say 
And I bet you you do have this issue ... you're just not as anal as I am so you've not noticed 
Link for original (click the pic and you should be able to read it)
https://imgur.com/B4sjyRq
Check that link out ... I have nothing but Chrome and Spotify (and the monitors) running. Check out CPU Clocks in Afterburner on the left (lower graph) ... Clocks constantly bouncing, and usually quite high (see how right now it's 3200MHz)... then look at Ryzen Master on the right, the top graph, and the speed display ... nice and low speeds, like you'd want your idle to be, and the clocks barely vary as you can see from the graph.
Then compare temps. In afterburner, they bounce CONSTANTLY back and forth from like 39 to 49. In Ryzen Master they're a steady 39-40, and they don't bounce unless I actually do something.
And ANYPLACE you look other than Ryzen Master ... even the built-in GB software or in the BIOS ... you see what you see in Afterburner. Constant variations, CPU not really 'idling', etc.
It bugs the shit out of me. That's why I wanna use one of the Mobo temps leads (they're wires that plug into the mobo and have a temp sensor at the other end, and they come with the board, I'm sure you have at least 2 with the Ultra ) to get temps, so I can assign fan control to the temp on the lead, not the bouncy-bouncy CPU die temp.
what is the lesson?
The latest flare-up regarding BunkerBoy's tariff wars was supposedly about "protecting" Whirlpool and he slapped a tariff on Canadian aluminum - costing MOST Americans more for whatever appliance they opt to buy.
Maybe it is a problem when you try to protect your buddies (donors!) but what does that do for the rest of our country? 
Our landfills are physical proof. This must stop for the sake of the planet, but I don't know what it will take to end the throw-away era. I've always been a Mr. Fix-it, but as you know, many items simply can't be fixed these days. I have a window unit waiting to be cleaned but maybe next year. We're getting by with one window unit for the whole house now by using circulating fans (another subject of my disgust toward products that fail all too soon).
By the way, in my area, we have to pay to have the freon removed from AC units before the garbage trucks will pick them up. I fear the scrap guys that grab stuff off the curb will just vent the freon into the air.
KY.....