I don't think there's many people out there other than Boomers that look at GE as an important brand name. I definitely don't have anything from them nor do I plan to buy anything any time soon.
I would think it might carry some weight in the trades though. If I have some electrical component and it says GE on it, I am going to trust it a lot more than a "happy smile electronics" part. Whether that trust is misplaced or not is a different conversation, though.
I think they're probably fine without your dollars or mindshare.
I suspect part of the reason they're getting out of a lot of this commodity (or borderline commodity) businesses is because they make much more money on building power plants and wind turbines, jet engines, medical equipment (MRI/CT/PET/etc machines and more), etc.
Some quick digging, and it looks like their lighting and industrial controls division made all of $300m in profit. Their aviation products alone profited over $28b.
