Just because you don't know now, doesn't excuse you from not knowing when you go to make a purchase. There are a number of ways to acquire knowledge out there. Go get it.
To a point. But there aren't enough hours in the day to become an expert in buying everything one has to buy, and in many cases predicting the durability of something is really difficult.
I guess this is in large part why brands are so valuable, as they give consumers a seemingly easy quality heuristic.
The term you may be looking for is: Rational Ignorance
Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating
oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that
the knowledge would provide.
Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" when
the cost of educating oneself about the issue
sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh
any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain
from that decision, and so it would be irrational to
waste time doing so. This has consequences for the
quality of decisions made by large numbers of people,
such as general elections, where the probability of any
one vote changing the outcome is very small.
You can rely on the opinions of experts for many large purchases, like cars. For smaller items it's usually good enough to look for hallmarks of quality; e.g. whether the wood in the furniture is solid.
I agree. Time is our most valuable resource and it's a cost/benefit matter as to whether it's worth your while looking in-depth at purchasing options for a particular type of product.
Just don't go overboard with looking for the absolute best.
Your post reminded me of "The Paradox of Choice" [1], a book by Barry Schwartz that I read not long ago. One of the claims that the author makes is that satisficing is the best maximizing strategy. After factoring in stress, wasted time and dissatisfaction that result from looking for "the best" product or price it turns out that paying a bit more for a product that is good enough is cheaper.
But how can you decide whether a product is a good trade-off when you don't know what the best is? I think that leaving the decision to trustworthy experts is the most viable solution.
EDIT: Actually, your best long term investment could be learning how to spot trustworthy expert advice.
Just because you don't know now, doesn't excuse you from not knowing when you go to make a purchase. There are a number of ways to acquire knowledge out there. Go get it.