I haven't pondered "quality" much since reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance many years ago. Producer Bob Ezrin has thought about quality, and his shared thoughts are in a recent Bob Lefsetz post.

This business of exploiting art and entertainment is built from it’s very inception on creativity and quality, on special things made by special people that touch, inform, elevate, divert, soothe, numb, challenge or sometimes even drive other people enough so that they are drawn to it and want it to be a part of their lives - either for the moment or for a very long time. When they want it, they sometimes pay for it in one way or another and this special stuff sometimes accrues a value beyond the ephemeral and actual makes money for its creator and for the folks who help to support and market it. Sometimes it becomes more valuable than gold and stars are born.

But unless it is especially touching in some way (even if it’s in a juvenile or prurient way), nobody will care and it will end up having no value at all. Which then goes to your title "Quality." If a thing lacks quality of some sort, it will not touch anyone. It will simply be a not so special thing in a world of not so special things. It will blend in and disappear. But if a work or performance is of high quality and special, then it has at least a shot at becoming valuable to someone - and the person who creates it has a shot at being appreciated and rewarded for it.

Part of Ezrin's commentary was advice to struggling artists. He finished with this:

Dedicate yourself to quality, to being the very best at what you do and then use that quality to create or be something truly great. Then you may have a shot at "making it." But whether you become a star or not, you will have become and will forever be someone very special. And others will know you for that.