The Internet helps with this some. I’ve found a number of companies, American Giant, American Blanket Company, Trayvax, Liberty Table Top, Awesome Coffee Club, and 360 Cookware that are all from what I can tell, doing it right at the higher price that comes with.
They can stay in business because they don’t have to maintain brick and mortar stores and appeal to the lowest bidder to stay in business.
It’s definitely hard to convince friends to actually spend the extra money though.
If there’s one brand I’m not buying again it’s LG.
I know of two LG dishwashers (mine and my parents) that have… issues.
My fridge from them is okay but I’m fairly confident there have been a few times that freeze portion had gone significantly above its set temperature because some popsicles melted. I’ve also had issues with the ice maker design not actually knocking down the ice so I have to open up the door and bang on it to break it loose, at which point a few pieces of ice fly onto the floor.
My oven/electric range from them well … so far so good on that one. I do wish there were actual knobs/buttons instead of the weird “touch” buttons but that just seems to be the trend these days.
The main thing that kills cables is sitting a phone in portrait on one’s chest and having it plugged in for charging. That creates a nice 90-degree or nearly 90-degree bend that just destroys the cable over time.
Unfortunately they’ve outsourced to Vietnam. I can attest I have several USA made go ruck packs … and they do still sell a few like that. But they’ve mostly outsourced; YMMV.