The paper provides a brief exposition on the logic underlying demand for quality-differentiated products. The argument builds and extends on basic constructs from undergraduate microeconomics followed by a brief critique of market responses to consumer preferences for quality variation. Potential extensions are noted, including policy applications in utility pricing tied to quality variations in service reliability, congestion pricing, as well as microeconomic insights into industrial disruption caused by lower quality producers invading markets controlled by higher quality monopolies and the potentially disproportionate impact on lower income households of quality distortions created by monopoly practices.