A dull knife is a dangerous knife that is frustrating to use. And if you use a knife, it will dull. Saying “this is BIFL even if you don’t sharpen it” is like saying “this car is BIFL because you only have to change its oil half as much”.

They have a lot of restaurant supplies for cheap. One example is a two pack of Tramontina knifes for $20: https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/tramontina-proline-8-and-10-cooks-knives-commercial-grade-2-ct.product.100227891.html

It’s a great place to get mixing bowls too - they have stainless steel mixing bowls for $2-3.

But I AM a huge fan of the 60-100 USD range (pre-Liberation Day prices. Who the hell knows how horrible they are now). The Victorinox (the swiss army knife company) knives are shockingly affordable and the polymer handle isn’t the most ergonomic but it has a really solid texture to make up for it.

Also, just because I have apparently mentioned them like ten times: Don’t sleep on those really shitty dirt cheap stamped metal boning knives. For that, you want something REALLY sharp that you don’t care about damaging. THAT is where you actually use those shitty metal grinder sharpeners… or you just buy a new one every hundred or so chickens you break down.

Different metals will dull/misalign faster but basically no home chef will really have to worry about that. It is only really an issue when you are dicing dozens of pounds of veg a day (so restaraunt and some recipe developers).

The real benefit to a more expensive knife is almost always balance and ergonomics of the handle. And unless you know what you want, you are just going to waste a lot of money.

Saying “this knife is buy it for life” is like saying “this hammer is buy it for life”.

One other caveat. A lot of people will see a youtube chef cut through the joint of a chicken leg or carve out the spine or something similar. Unless you know what you are doing, that is where those cheap stamped metal boning knives come in handy. THAT is how you chip and break a blade because you weren’t actually cutting through the cartilage (?) connecting the joints and were instead hacking through the bones themselves.

Point being, I think any good quality Japanese chef knife has the potential to be BIFL.