I guess it depends. There are items for which there's just no margin for cutting quality. Take for example a Hermes bag. While some buyers would probably settle for less quality, the brand depends on the image of a high quality product, thus the bags have increased in price by 5%+x annually for the past 20 years. That's a rate which is unsustainable for non-luxury items. Another example is Miele washing machines, which most likely deserve to be considered top notch and high quality. The prices have barely increased in the same timespan, which technically means they are 25%-30% less expensive after inflation. It's hard to imagine that the production process was improved by that much.