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Comment by iandanforth | Hacker News Reader

I get the feeling that Chinese businesses (who are making the real products as well) are shouting to the American consumer "you are getting ripped off, here's how much these products cost without a huge profit margin."

There are plenty of low quality fakes, but as Jack Ma said, some are better than the licenced versions.

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Some system of clamps and shock cords for holding down a fitted bed sheets can hardly be fake. Anyone's implementation is likely as good as anyone else's.

Though Whalley has a patent on it, the article claims, prior art for the basic idea can be seen on any truck that has a tarp tied down over a bunch of cargo.

The knockoff razor blades, however, are not nearly as sharp as the real ones.

Whose knockoffs? There are some quality ones.

... and how do you know which one is of high quality when you buy?

Since the products are copies -- how would you know you don't get ripped off next week, when Amazon sell some other copies? The packaging etc look the same, by definition...

It is just not realistic to keep up with the exact details and doing a complete quality check whenever you buy anything, from toilet paper to cars. Every time.

I predict that this is just a short phase. If the quality of products at Amazon will be a total dice throw, the consumer reaction will be to buy directly from the producers' web sites. That is not in Amazon's interests, so they will soon be more transparent. Or become irrelevant.

The way to deal with it is for consumers not to buy from individual sellers with no or bad feedback. Amazon will kick them off once they have too many complaints.

The vast majority of sales go through without any problem.

I think Amazon maybe should restrict access to the comingling program to new sellers, which would help somewhat. They already won't let you get the buy box as a Merchant Fulfilled seller when you're just starting or when you're below metrics.

I've purchased Feather and Derby blades on Amazon and they're stupid sharp. Which brands have you had bad luck with? Assuming DESR here.

I mean actual counterfeits. Like the packaging says Schick but they are much worse quality and clearly not authentic if you look closely. I got my money back easily, but still an unpleasant experience.

We're going to have to get used to more of this sort of thing as 3D printing and CAD/CAM continue to be more accessible to the masses, as then it won't be possible to dismiss knock-offs as coming from "the Chinese".

(I think this fight is going to look a lot like the MPAA/RIAA vs. everyone-who-listens-to-music wars of the 2000s, except this time for real money.)

It sounds like the real problem here, if there is one, is that Amazon's rating system isn't good enough at preventing fake ratings.

Short-term gain, long-term loss for the American consumers. If the Chinese will simply copy and crush many honest businesses then not many people will want to spend on R&D, on developing novel designs. The result is stagnation in innovation and the decline in business ethics in the market.

You probably have not seen how it really works in China:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

There is no "stagnation in innovation", in fact I'd say things happen much faster because there's far more competition.

There absolutely is a loss of "savoir faire" in the west in every industry China has completely taken over. Furthermore we basically exchanged real growth for credit backed one AKA fake growth, because of all the real jobs moving to China. That's why we have all these housing market crisis. It is something the west will deeply regret 20 years down the road. Business is war, globalism won't change that fact.

Heh, you should see the current housing bubble that rages through out china today. The large amounts of fraud, the huge amounts of capital flight, the government backed credit bubbles.

  > "savoir faire"

I don't understand this phrase. All the definitions i found seem to be about personal behavior. Is there an alternate definition? What are you trying to convey?

"know how" in French

In french is the term restricted to an individual? All of the definitions I found see me to relate to "know how react/behave according to prevailing social rules", eg: "the ability to behave in a correct and confident way in different situations".

OP seemed to be referring to technical competency for an entire industry.

I've only ever heard it used in the context of an individual, along the lines of "does this guy have the know-how to lead the dev team?".

Thank you for indulging my pedantry.

and because the manufacturing happens right then and there.

the proximity to people in charge of manufacturing the products also increases innovation- they see problems firsthand and can contribute to solving them.

Yes, the intense competition drives minor incremental improvements. Not capital-intensive major inventions.

There's no incentive for the Chinese knock-offs to have good quality. The only incentive is to produce cheap to raise the profit margin.

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