Or maybe consumers do not want to (because it doesn't make economic sense for them, or because they don't want to spend every second of their free time optimizing) spend a significant amount of their time doing this kind of research before every purchase decision? I have never understood this argument that as long as information is technically available companies should be absolved of meeting some minimum level of baseline quality. You're also describing an industry that's unusually transparent (in part because there are not that many models of planes); for a lot of online goods there is absolutely no reasonable way you can know what a particular brand will be like before you buy.