> with the influx of newer premium brands and the fracturing of American consumers

I don't find it unfortunate, but I also think this is a bit of a misdiagnosis of the problem.

Coke is a bad example of this because it's mostly unchanged (and when they did try to change it, it became infamous. The "new coke" change). For almost all other american consumer products, the old time well known brands have decided to cut corners and cheap out on production. It's particularly obvious with restaurants where so many of the old chains have moved over to pre-prepped microwaved foods instead of actually cooking in house.

Americans have learned that brands can't be trusted to maintain quality. If a company can get away with it, they'll use any sort of deception to raise the price or cheap out on the ingredients. And they relied heavily on "it's X brand" to keep selling the lower quality goods.

That, IMO, is what's driven americans to brand fracture. People have learned that for a lot of clothing there's no difference between what they get from Temu and what they get from Old Navy. In fact, there's a real good chance those goods were made in the same factory.