They are exactly equal in quality, which the purchaser knows. Product A is the same as Product B in every way, except it's not a brand name. Product B costs a lot more than product A.

Why does the majority of society pick product B?

The answer is a complex multi-layer analysis of people needing to fit in, of status symbols, and of materialism.

Tuna's analysis of the question a year ago was "people won't know that they are equal."

People who don't understand the basic concept of hypotheticals drive me crazy. The purpose of a hypothetical is to eliminate the variables you aren't concerned with in order to gather information on the variable you are. So, obviously in society a guchi bag probably is of higher quality than some random knock off on the street. But i wasn't concerned with that issue when i posed tuna the question. B/c whatever extra value a guchi bag might have, it's not the 500x it would have to be to justify the difference in prices. Instead of getting into an impossible balancing of apples vs oranges to determine how much of the purchase price is determined by quality, I tried to eliminate the issue.

And of course he didn't get it.

No real point to this post. Re-including Tuna in the political emails got me thinking about just how frustrating it was to try and pin him down on issues.

Cheers.

Update:

cheeser50: I'm,sticking to my original argument that people aren't sheep