I get your points, love your writing and have a lot of respect for you in general, but on your point about soaps you're dead wrong. Aside from a few major US mainstream brands, which are admittedly pretty similar in cleaning ability, there is a very wide variety in the quality and experience of different soaps. some soaps clean better, some worse. some moisturizing, some dry you out, some neutral. some heavily perfumed, some not. some use artificial chemicals, some use natural/organic ingrediants. some smell natural, some smell chemically. some are big and last a while, some seem to degrade and shrink away to nothing very quickly. some are oily, some not. some have chunks to make them more corse, some not. variety of colors, variety of smells. some good at washing off oils from my hands, some bad. some rectangular, some oval (which effects UX and grippability.) some soaps cause skin irritation (in some people) and others do not. some soap taste bad (if you get in mouth accidentally), some do not. some will make your eyes sting painfully if it gets in it, some less so. granted, if you only take say 2-3 major US brands into account, your observation is not too far off base. But if you have experience with dozens of different types, different vendors, you'll discover a wide variety of meaningful differences in soaps. Even just (bath) bar soaps. Though I've noticed differences in pump bottle hand soaps as well.