> a commercial ecosystem built around providing consumers cheaper alternatives to name-brand products
This is expected IMHO, given that name brand product do nothing more than raise and raise prices, with varying list of ~excuses~ reasons such as "war here or there", "material/labor costs", "crisis", etc... But consumers' salaries are the same than before price raises of the last 7~10 years, so the new prices are unjustified (no better quality, no better products) and so people will keep expecting that a boot (or anything else) costs today the same as it cost in 2019.
Worse, too often name brands even start lowering the quality once the brand has been established.
Businesses don't just price gouge. They often expand their product lines or have R&D to come up with new products and that's more costly than just making the same shoe with the same materials for 40 years. Many consumers feel like "Why do they need to grow? Why can't they just make the product I like and I'll pay for it?" But the reality is that not growing is not protecting yourself from the future. For every product Quince dupes (and they have every right to do them and congrats on their successful business model), there is a brand with a signature product people stopped caring about, and if they hadn't spent the money to expand and try selling new products they may not have survived.