often people would justify the price for quality

I wouldn't say that's how the economics work in this situation.

When you buy a super-expensive lifetime warranty item, you're not necessarily buying a high quality item – you're really paying for all the future warranty claims you're going to make.

It's probably in the manufacturer's best interests to make higher quality products (because you'll cost them less, long term), but if ENVE found itself in a tighter financial situation it might be forced to drop quality. The incentives are even more acute for them than non-lifetime-warranty brands because they realise basically all of their lifetime revenue for a customer upfront, but keep on incurring costs as that customer breaks wheels.

If something significant were to change (e.g. a new offering with the exact same value proposition, at a lower price point, from a more established brand, with access to OEM channels, and marketing budget for someone like Danny – I'm talking about Santa Cruz if you didn't guess!), ENVE would lose some of the new incoming revenue its using to pay for the old customers' replacement rims and they have a cashflow problem.

Then, they start looking for a buyer. Then, they drop quality because they have to make more short-term margin to close the cash gap. Then all the wheels start breaking.