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I did buy a number of fake flash drives, so they're definitely up there. Luckily I've always won the disputes and got my money back from every one of them.
There were also a number of headphones whose sound was so fucking bad, listening to stuff off my phone's speakers was better
Years ago I bought an angle grinder from Aldi, for about 20,-. After 30 min it started to smell and the enclosure started to melt. I brought ist back still warm and smelling burnt in order to recieve my refund. Although I knew it couldn't be of good quality I expected it to last a little bit longer. If you buy cheap you buy twice.
A replacement PCV valve for my car.
Car was around 100,000 miles, figured it was a good time to do a big refresh & replace a bunch of stuff. Spark plugs, belts & hoses, fuel & air filters, fluids, etc etc... While I was at the parts store, guy suggested I also replace the PCV valve. But, it turned out the only one he had in stock was the store brand. $4, sure whatever. Got it home, took the factory one off the car, and sure enough it was gummed up kinda bad. But went to put the new one on, and it just about collapsed in my hands. It was so flimsy, kinda like a drinking straw. Ended up cleaning the factory one & putting it back on, threw the new one away.
My Muller hand mixer was designed to break.
Feit light bulbs aren't worth it for any price less than free.
I'm annoyed that feit is the only brand available at home depot now. I thought big box stores and capitalism were supposed to give me a choice in what I buy. Guess not anymore eh?
A set of darts from Temu. They were 23g and the barrel was like, slippery feeling to where you had almost no grip to barely grip. It was hard at times throwing them, you had to fling them to get them on the board.
Cream Soda from Best Choice, a brand that's from those not-so-well known grocery stores that charge 10% on top of the total amount you pay groceries for. This is somehow a step below Great Value brand which arguably is better in comparison.
A wireless logitech mouse for gaming from back when wireless technology for periferals still meant a decent amount of latency. I learned quickly why latency is important when gaming. Also the precission of the mouse was terrible as it would regularly skip backwards under slightly accelerated movements. It was pretty humbling for me as a ~15 year old kid to realize I wasted around 4 weeks of newspaper work money on a mouse which I gave up on almost the same day as I bought it.
There's probably worse, but off the top of my head, a Sandisk Curzer Fit USB 3.0 drive. It would overheat about 15 seconds into a file transfer and throttle to well below USB 2.0 speeds, perhaps even USB 1.1. I tried to alleviate the issue by using it through a USB 2.0 extender (thereby ruining its entire appeal to compactness), but it developed bad sectors soon enough. It was satisfying smashing it to bits with a hammer though.
Quip was pretty awful compared to Sonicare.
Yep. Absolute garbage.
I purchased sunglasses in the Philippines and they broke the same day. I purchased a different pair from a different stand and they broke the same day. Im convinced the defective bottom of the barrel get dumped onto the Philippines
So apparently this is 100% a thing with expensive camera lenses. Different markets will get different quality lenses despite the model being marked as the same.
It's also why I won't buy clothing from US based outlets, as the brands have been known to explicitly manufacture lower quality product to sell at outlets. That said, the only time this actually comes up for me (being an Australian), is that I won't buy big brand clothing at Costco.
Those Dollar Store umbrellas! They are so shit they will break if the slightest bit of wind hits them, or maybe the flimsy metal frame breaks from closing it.
Sure it's from the Dollar Store, but I've bought lots of things from there that have last a decent around of time.
Cheap mini Bluetooth keyboard. It kept disconnecting and missing keystrokes. Input latency was awful too. 2010s Bluetooth was so bad
Can I nominate an airline?
Just about anything by Betterware. The one that sticks in my mind was the non-stick stick-on hook that lasted for all of a minute before falling off under its own weight. I ended up second guessing how the thing they were selling could possibly go wrong, and if I could think of something then I wouldn't get it.
There is one Betterware item that's lasted the years though. A hair trap for the sink. It's a metal disk with holes punched in it. Hard for that not to work, really.
Also, increasingly, tat off Scamazon.
Edit: I misread the question. I thought it was "lowest quality product that you still use" (I was distracted)
Original comment: Harbor freight calipers. Surprisingly still accurate and undamaged through years of abuse. Kind of amazing, and shockingly useful.
I bought a harbor freight heat gun. All I'll use it for is lighting charcoal. Very uneven heat, and will melt itself if you don't turn it nozzle up when you turn it off.
We got gifted a plastic rack for garden utensils. My mother in law bought it for us from the local supermarket (which has various cheap crap every week). Anyway, we placed a few items in it and it broke in a day. Utterly useless.
A donair from Pizza 73
Barely working solar charger
probably not the lowest quality, but an allarm clock from walmart that sheared/tore off the prongs from its plug leaving them in the outlet. (to have some charity I was putting significant strain on it)
Alarm clocks have been the bane of my existence. Almost every one of them is a cheap POS that barely handles you hitting the snooze button
I can barely count the number of alarm clocks that I ended up destroying by hitting the snooze button on two hands.