It's not that people 'want' to buy cheap stuff.
That's the mistake PC laptop makers made for 20 years, collective racing to the bottom until they figured out ways to produce $300 laptop. But they eventually learned that a large consumer base had no problem paying $1200 for a MacBook. It turns out, people were willing to pay substantially more for a better product. Now, PC makers are dishing out laptops that are comparable to Apple's.
In my view, main problem is this; when you make washing machine ranging from $500-$2000, inevitably they will share significant number of parts. And the weakest link will most likely be the shared parts engineered to cost, so that they can be profitable in the $500 model.
So why use not bespoke, higher quality parts for the $2000 one? Because it will end up costing more like $4,000-$5,000.
Overall reliability of appliance would shoot up, if a company stopped making their cheapest model so dirt cheap.
I'm pretty sure they do. In that price range you're looking at entry level commercial / heavy duty cycle equipment.
> Overall reliability of appliance would shoot up, if a company stopped making their cheapest model so dirt cheap.
They have to be dirt cheap to compete with decades of used appliances available.
Anecdata: Most people I know outside of my circles of engineers, gamers and well-off college students who disproportionately own Thinkpads, Asus gaming laptops and Macs respectively, still own throwaway PC laptops.
This is not just a VW thing. For the longest time Honda did the same thing: European Accord were sold in the US as Acuras while the US got it's own special Accord.
This is probably due more to the high vehicle taxes and lower volumes of Europe than it is an inherent "cheapness" with Americans.
See -- no conspiracy theories required, just general greed and irresponsibility. :)