What makes cheap beer taste bad?

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First off, I’m not a beer drinker. Do the breweries skimp on ingredients or the brewing process, or both, to save costs?
Is there anything specific to “good” beer that is missing from the cheap stuff?

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I don't know their processes but... being a homebrewer, there are a few ways to make bad beer.

1) Cheap/old/stale ingredients. Old oxidized hops.
2) Poor quality control. This could be anything from incorrect or unstable mash temperature, no boil/too vigorous a boil, oxygenation, poor cleaining/sanitary procedures.

However, i think most likely, it's just using inexpensive ingredients and expediting the brewing process. Some of the richness/flavor of good beer can be lessened with rather plain/inexpensive malts. It's also possible to shorten fermentation time by using yeasts that ferment quickly. The yeast probably isn't known for it's flavor, but for it's attenuation ability. Simple water profile. If a brewer doesn't give a shite about flavor, he probalby won't invest much effort into water profile for the style. Minimal hops.

Shorter fermentation time, cheaper grains, basic water, low/minimal hops all makes a beer cheaper, and not necessarily the most flavorful.

Most cheap beers are made with rice as the majority of the grain bill. Flavor from rice is "less" than using more higher quality barley and wheat. Plus, they also use the cheapest quality hops.

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But I will happily drink a Lone Star or Bud Light at a dive bar or live music venue where the selections are limited.

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miller high life is always an acceptable choice

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But I will happily drink a Lone Star or Bud Light at a dive bar or live music venue where the selections are limited

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Add miller and coors to this list for me. Especially if seafood or a burger is involved.

I like PBR but the wife says it makes me irritable? So I drink busch. I say this to leet yall know I love cheap beer and all those sissy boy fancy poodle beers not so much I like my beer pure beer and cold.

I read about how Schlitz went from a top seller to out of business by cutting costs on production. When Miller Lite and Bud Light started cutting into their market share, the boss decided if he couldn’t make profit by volume sales, he would do it by reducing costs.

They started using corn syrup to replace some of the malted barley, and substituted cheaper hop pellets for fresh hops. The ingredient alterations were made incrementally, thinking drinkers wouldn’t notice, but they did and complained that their former favorite beer now tasted like shite. Schlitz also shortened the aging process, which required an additive to reduce haze that normal aging would have prevented. That inadvertently caused a snotty sediment that drinkers did not prefer.

Sales plummeted. Schlitz had to sell out within a short time. Stroh’s bought it, and the debt Stroh’s took on the make the buy killed it too.

I have to add marijuana flavored beers to your list of terrible craft beers

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They started using corn syrup to replace some of the malted barley, and substituted cheaper hop pellets for fresh hops

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Every big brewer does this always. Light beers especially on corn syrup to get the alcohol content up.

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all those sissy boy fancy poodle beers not so much I like my beer pure beer and cold.

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Current adjuct lagers are less pure than certain craft beers. If by pure, you mean according to style, then the "pilsner" you think you are drinking from bud/miller/coors has little resemblance to the original hoppy pilsners brewed in Czechoslovakia and Germany.