That's one of the problems with a 100% free market. There's an implicit assumption that everyone is a perfectly rational economic actor that understands what goes into lightbulb durability. But does the average person really have the scientific knowledge to determine the mean-time-to-failure of different lightbulbs and the math skills necessary to know whether it's more cost effective to buy several cheap bulbs or 1 durable one?

When you have that level of information asymmetry, people might value qualities like durability but can't guide their purchasing decisions with it because they don't know what ion exchanged glass is and why they should be looking for it. Not everyone is an engineer/scientist.