Super glue.

Cyanocrylate adhesives were accidently discovered in WW2 while trying to develop a clear plastic. Later Eastman-Kodak held the patent and then sold it to Loctite on the 1960s.

Loctite 404 is so much better than anything else available on the market. It bonds better, it's stronger, it lasts longer and the bottle applicator is more controlled and easier to use. If you want it to last years, you can actually store in in the refrigerator when not being used.

I buy nearly everything generic but generic Band-Aids have terrible adhesive so I always buy name brand.

Edit: Oh, and frozen pizza. I’ve had too many generics with crusts that might as well have been made of cardboard.

I think Dawn dish soap gets mentioned in these often.

SD cards, SSD, USB drives, any form of computer memory really and replacement batteries too eg for cameras. I suck up the cost and buy directly from a reputable manufacturer.

Mine is Q-tips…. Let’s just say you shouldn’t put a flimsy cotton stick in your ear unless you trust it’ll come out in one piece

Huy Fong Sriracha. As the shortage has made painfully clear. When I dream at night, I'm eating food covered in sriracha and tinkering with my roomful of Raspberry Pi projects.

And don't talk to me about disgruntled pepper farmer rivalries or whatever bullshit. Just please give me back my sriracha. :(

Debian. All those off-brand derivatives just add cruft and instability.

Irish butter, in particularly Kerrygold, are so much better than american butter.

Garbage bags. I don't particularly care WHICH brand, but I won't do generic. The consequences if the bag rips open are horrifying.

Victorinox Swiss Army knives. If you want a tiny, multipurpose pocketknife, they cannot be beat.

And they're cheap enough from TSA eBay sales, why would you accept a crappy knockoff?!

Pretty much every signature soda drink. Pepsi, Coke, Mountain Dew... none of the knock-offs taste right and some are just nasty. Oddly, root beer seems to be the one flavor everyone can do well, maybe because it's a more common flavor with no patents on the general idea? I dunno but I don't think I've ever had a 'bad' root beer.

Pop-Tarts. No store brand toaster pastry tastes like Pop-Tarts.

Nutella,

I only buy it once or twice a year but no other chocolate spread tastes nearly as good.

Q-Tips. Paper shafts, plenty of fuzz on the ends.

I honestly can't think of anything. I own many "name brand" products but it's usually a pay-once-cry-once situation. It's not like I keep buying more of the same product after I already have one.

For consumables pretty much every product I use is the generic version of some well known one. I'm not paying double the price for something that's 20% better. For example the generic version of my favourite cookies is 95 cents and the name brand is 3.4€. It's not that much better.

My dad always bought the no-name cookies for us, according to him every major brand had a deal with discount supermarkets to sell their brand name product under a cheaper no-name alias.

That might be true in some cases but the stuff he bought was mostly just cheap knock-offs that didn't even come close to the original.

You're absolutely wrong about Advil. Advil has a tasty candy coating.

Coffee. I found a coffee shop I loved 20 years ago and have been buying beans from them ever since. Sure, it's 2x-3x times more expensive, but it's worth it to me.

Toothpaste. I have sensitive teeth and the off brands just don't cut it. Heck, some of the name brands don't.

3d printing filament. Printed Solid named their line after their dog, so I have to. I will still branch out for stuff on sale, but the majority of my stock is Printed Solid.

Spam, off brand spam just isn’t worth it

Certain skin products for me. It makes such a big difference to get some well recommended brands rather than risk it with a random one.

Cetaphil and Cerave are usually solid, and otherwise I refer to the CDA when unsure:

https://dermatology.ca/recognized-products/skincare/ (note that you can scroll within the list to see everything)

The list is for stuff that is

• Low potential for irritation
• Fragrance free or unscented
• Do not contain the most common allergens
• Non-comedogenic

But I specifically look for non-comedogenic and fragrance free. The latter because my old workplace had this as a requirement, and now I prefer it

Oreos

Contact lens solution (any name brand)

Kraft mac and cheese, all the store brands are superficially similar but taste bland and or have weird textures.

Trader Joe's stuff is hard to find emulated else where.

Netherlands represent!

Coca Cola
Hela curry ketchup
Albert Heijn frikadelbroodje
Ben & Jerry's ice cream

Most foods. Store brands are (nearly) always lacking in something. Be it tiny sized canned beans, or jam whose only flavour is ‘sweet’. That shit is cheap for a reason.

Doesn’t apply to everything (depending on where you live), some things you can’t cut corners on without advertising it. 2% Milk is 2% milk.

But largely, low cost food has been made low cost via haircuts and shortcuts.