This is the historical problem with 'quality' in this game. Several products: production plants, adv. quality products, efficiency products, schools, hospitals, roads, etc. don't provide any gameplay benefit for the consumer as a result of quality.
As a result, quality simply becomes a way to bilk cash from customers, resulting in some distorted behaviors that the game solves by forcing customers to get taken to the cleaners.
Back in the day this was true of ALL products. Now, at least, many products give pass-through quality benefits and countries both pass the costs along to their citizens AND seem to get a wellfare bonus for consuming high quality goods.