In recent history the United States has been the best place to get the best durable goods at the cheapest price because it was the biggest market. The size of a market is determined by the number of people who are potential buyers, or sellers of a product. The United States did not have the most people, but it had the most people with the ability to buy the most durable goods.

Compared to a lot of countries, though, the United States does not have that many people. If any of those more populous countries develops to a point where its people are buying more durable goods that country could quickly become the biggest market, even if the proportion of durable goods per person is lower.

This shift has started to happen in the smartphone industry. There are multiple newer Chinese smartphone manufacturers making some the cheapest and best smartphones available today. These companies were unheard of in the West until recently, due to their initial focus on Eastern markets, and many of their phones are unavailable in the West.

China alone has more people than the United States and Europe combined, but all of those people are consolidated into one economic area. The same is true of India. Both countries have about a billion more people than the United States. Even if a higher percentage of the people in the United States are buying smartphones and doing it more frequently it is difficult to keep up with that population discrepancy now that the people in China and India are buying smartphones.

Smartphones may not be the first industry to trend in this direction. It is just the first one I am concretely aware of. I would be surprised if this shift to the East due to its market size did not continue.