Exactly. They just don't make things like they used to. I bought a $160 pair of boots once, thinking they would be great and last me a long time. They seemed solid, but they started leaking and cracking within a year. The next year I bought a $35 pair, which lasted the winter but sort of fell apart, and the next year I did the same again, which lasted three years.

The problem with paying more for higher quality is that there's little guarantee these days that price and quality are even correlated.