I buy almost entirely counterfeit/knockoff goods. Quality is variable, but paying only 20% of the retail price for a similarish item works out well for me.
I don't really understand why anyone would buy originals to be honest...
I am an engineer, so claims like 'it's made in china and might explode' I can take with an appropriate sized grain of salt. One thing to watch out for is that chinese made devices are not expected to be safe if you don't follow the instructions. For example, if a device says 'do not charge for more than 2 hours', that means if you leave it on charge overnight it will catch fire. In the USA, devices need to be safe even if the instructions aren't followed.
This has got to be a troll post. How could anyone think it's acceptable for something to catch fire if they accidentally leave it plugged in too long? Do you set a timer each time you plug something in? Do counterfeiter items always come with their modified counterfeit-only instructions with these new rules to follow? Do they say "Note: this is a counterfeit so we replaced the food bowl's paint with a cheaper lead-based one, thus do not eat from it, especially not your children"?
Only 40 years ago, this was the case in the USA.. with rechargeable AA batteries. Chargers at the time didn't have detection for the battery being full, and after a few hours on an inappropriately sized fast charger, a battery would emit steam.
China is just a little behind, and the public has quickly come to assume devices are safe even if abused.
Isn't there a little engineering principle called "Murphy's Law"? If I recall correctly, the gist of it is "If something can be done incorrectly, it eventually will be done incorrectly."
Designing with Murphy's Law in mind is essential for not killing your customers and burning down their cities, or downing their passenger airliners, or crashing their cars.
It doesn't even cost more, in a company that can be sued for the liabilities of their defective products.
I don’t know what industry you work on where it’s ever ok for things to catch on fire if the user doesn’t follow instructions, but at least in mine even the word fire is out of bounds.
I've always thought there should be a .adv TLD, and if you're caught serving anything but first party information outside of that, there would be severe penalties.
Let one TLD take all the cutthroat inhumane tracking, malware, scum adserving, all of it, and let the rest of us browse in peace.
Either a trip or someone who buys counterfeit products on the street, where information in the market is known. If you buy a Gucci bag on the street, you know it's not really Gucci and you price accordingly. The same for DVDs, or electronics in a shady camera store. This is different. This is deception by a company that wants you to believe you're buying the real thing and charging you in accordance.
I don't really understand why anyone would buy originals to be honest...
I am an engineer, so claims like 'it's made in china and might explode' I can take with an appropriate sized grain of salt. One thing to watch out for is that chinese made devices are not expected to be safe if you don't follow the instructions. For example, if a device says 'do not charge for more than 2 hours', that means if you leave it on charge overnight it will catch fire. In the USA, devices need to be safe even if the instructions aren't followed.