Brands

Historically brands were very important, companies traded on them, they were reliable, made a good range and it was easy to find something that suited your needs.
Over the last few decades this has changed, ever since the 1970s when instrument manufacturing in Japan started to ramp up with highly competitive instruments at a fraction of the US equivalent. So much so that U.S companies were drawn into having their brands made in Japan. This created huge problems for those companies back home. The American guitar buying public were not happy in spite of the quality of those instruments.
Eventually those companies had to withdraw from Japan. This historic period changed the brand US monopoly forever.
China now is the new Japan and everything that was thought about Japanese made instruments is being said about China except with modern manufacturing technology and knowhow the instruments coming out are better than ever but that being the case there are plenty of low priced and low quality products around.