Been thinking about this after going down a research rabbit hole on luxury cigar humidors of all things. Weird category to end up in, but it turned out to be a pretty good case study in a pattern I think shows up everywhere in product design.
At the entry level of that category, almost every product looks and performs about the same. But once you get into the higher tier, the marketing copy across brands starts converging on the same vague language (premium materials, precision engineering, timeless craftsmanship) while the actual functional differences get harder to spot unless you know exactly what to look for. In that specific case it turned out to be things like active vs. passive climate control, which is barely mentioned on most product pages even though it's the single biggest factor in whether the thing actually works a year from now instead of just on day one.
Been down a bit of a rabbit hole comparing robot vacuums over the past few months (two dogs at home, so cleaning is a daily problem, not a weekly one). And the thing that surprised me is how much the marketing focuses on one spec suction power while the actual dealbreaker for most people turns out to be something else entirely: the brush roll.
