Having that kind of an attitude with device chargers is a great way to damage your devices! Does that guy feel the same about his phone as he does his chargers?
There are times when the cheapest option is a smart way to go, and times when it's so convenient that it's worth picking up the cheap item even knowing it'll cost you later. Most of the time though I think people like having nice things. I'll confess I do know people who have money but always buy the cheapest toilet paper. There's no understanding some people.
I don't know if this extends to the US, but over here there has been a massive shift in retail. The middle is gone. There's value shopping and there's luxury shopping. Very low-end and very high-end.
Stores in the mid segment, which used to dominate retail, are falling apart. Some of these chains existed for over a century, had stores in every dutch city. They're all going bankrupt or already are.
They have no reason to exist. Their products may be of a slightly better quality, but barely so, as they too go for cheap Chinese garbage. They don't really offer better service because they can't afford to. Their staff are clueless teenagers for being cheap.
I'm from the Netherlands. One of the most successful retail stores here is "Action", which in the category of low quality garbage sinks to the absolute bottom.
Everybody knows it's garbage. One may buy a pair of scissors there and have it break down in 2 months of usage. So then people just buy another one. It's not strictly a budget issue, most shoppers can afford a good pair of scissors, one that lasts 10 years, but they prefer the cheap one anyway.
"Alibaba shopping" is mainstream here. Everybody buys their small items there. One of my colleagues, whom is upper middle class, was proudly telling me how he buys a "value" pack of 10 phone chargers every year. They're all terrible and soon break down, so then he'll just move to the next one. He could just buy a single decent one, but no.
I wish you were right, but you're not. People just want the absolute cheapest thing, and they want it now.