I totally agree with you, there are some songs that I like to listen to that are of the rap and trap genre that talk about exactly that "my value is not what I have but what I am", among many other examples, I don't think that having a brand on everything is a cool thing, like, everyone decides what they are going to spend the money they earn, but there are people who go through need to be able to buy a branded sneaker or an iphone for example, I think that's too wrong.
The best thing is to balance, to look for things that are good for us and that won't blow our budget and as you said, it's good to help other people too in some way, we need to live beyond designer brands!