Those things are not commodities. Commodities can not crapify (loved that word), by definition.
Capitalism has invented brands to fight this, and it worked for a long time. It's not really capitalism that is at fault, but the thing that changed in the 80's that turned the entire system upside down. It's hard to point at something specific, but markets used to be less transactional and less winner-takes-all.
Perhaps it's not fair to point to a 97-page article as "something specific," but "the thing that changed" was thoroughly explained in Amazon's Antitrust Paradox (2017) [1]. Specifically:
> In some ways, the story of Amazon's sustained and growing dominance is also the story of changes in our antitrust laws. Due to a change in legal thinking and practice in the 1970s and 1980s, antitrust law now assesses competition largely with an eye to the short-term interests of consumers, not producers or the health of the market as a whole; antitrust doctrine views low consumer prices, alone, to be evidence of sound competition.
Capitalism has invented brands to fight this, and it worked for a long time. It's not really capitalism that is at fault, but the thing that changed in the 80's that turned the entire system upside down. It's hard to point at something specific, but markets used to be less transactional and less winner-takes-all.