Hearted just for “encrapification” 
I agree though- consolidation has created fake markets. Like for washing machines, there were three brands that had three very specific feature sets. The cheap one was basic, the middle one was identical but had extra things that most people want, then the top of the line had three additional things some people want. Each were priced almost exactly $500 apart. The three brands in question were all made by the same company but they went out of their way to hide that fact. I only found out because I noticed the copy pasta in the manuals.
They had “engineered” this marketplace with the three washers that their research determined are the ones people want, priced them at the limit of what people will pay, and that’s it. It looks like competition and a healthy marketplace, but it’s all bullshit. We’re being told what to buy and given no real options. Meanwhile they are free to make all three washers to the same cost-cutting standard on the back end, all in the same factory. The feature differences were probably mostly software, too. Just to complete the grift.
The brands in question by the way, were KitchenAid, Whirlpool, and Maytag. All owned by Whirlpool. GE owns all the other US appliance brands.
The Korean brands are still independent, so Samsung and LG are worth looking at seriously and will be actually different.
