I don't think it is, because I'm talking about a marketplace where goods and services can be exchanged for a price as being a filter for quality; otherwise known as capitalism.

If you assume price=quality and therefore always buy the most expensive one, you’re not participating in price discovery and they can just raise it, producing Veblen goods.

Oh I think I wasn't clear earlier. I'm not actually arguing that the higher priced the good, the higher the quality, since luxury items are one obvious exception. I agree with you there. I was making a comparison between educational lessons that are priced for free (like say YouTube tutorials) versus anything priced above $0.

I think just having a price tag at all incentivizes a marketplace where the best lessons compete. Now how one determines that quality though...lots of different heuristics and I have a few thoughts on how it could be done better but reviews, especially negative ones do a fairly decent job of assessing for qualities.

My apologies if it was not clear what I meant earlier.