I remember checking out some Ecco shoes at the mall years ago, didn’t pull the trigger as they were almost $300 but the way the construction as described to me it sounds like those could last 5+ years.

It's nearly always a false economy to try to reduce the upfront cost of footware (and a tremendous number of other things)

The Sam Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic inequality is a famous quote about how over time the more "affordable" option is often costs much more than the "expensive" option whilst also being a worse experience.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

– Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms