When consumers are aggressively searching for the lowest price, and in general lack the sophistication to tell what the performance is, you generally end up in a situation where even a buck or two can be the difference between a product that sells and doesn't. Sometimes the sophisticated option can be squeezed right out when the masses can't tell the difference... ask me how I feel about the inability to buy anything but TFT screens in a laptop sometime.
That is true, people often have crappy taste when it comes to quality (or just low budgets). However I think there is a big difference between buying "a laptop" and "a laptop that doesn't do anything unless you plug a phone into it".
