I'd just like to say that some of the cheaper stuff I've bought has often been far more useful than it's branded/dearer cousin. All sorts of computer paraphernalia, DVD players, toothpaste...

Oh I'd absolutely agree, given the products are equivalent - as Ernie says, there's no good reason to buy 'brand' toothpaste over 'own brand' toothpaste for example. However I think it would be... foolish to argue that the Mu Plug and the Thincharger are as equivalent as that, because they aren't. They may be broadly functionally identical, but they certainly aren't aesthetically identical. Now, you may not care about aesthetics, that's entirely fair enough. But that doesn't mean someone who does is 'a fool'. It just means they have different requirements.

Let's face it, if aesthetics weren't ever important we'd all the driving Kias. We aren't. We'd all be wearing clothes bought from Matalan. We aren't. Nobody would ever go to restaurants. Lots of people do.

We don't live in a purely functionalist world. To what extent you (or I) do is simply a personal choice.

That's what I meant by 'you get what you pay for'. You choose your own personal criteria and you decide if a given product matches it. And if it does, you pay for it. Only if someone pays money for something that doesn't match their own criteria are they 'a fool'.

In economics there is a term called Utility and it is different for everyone, The Utility that I would get buying an Apple computer might be much higher than buying an equivalent Windows variant. It may also be very different for everyone else. So the Marginal Utility is much higher for me. In economics terms I am trying to get the maximum utility for my money. It can be achieved by getting supermarket own brand for some items and value items for others, yet still buying Apple hardware.