This topic often comes up in 'gear' forums. It's a good debate. Respectfully I have a few points to make on the matter. I'll step up on the soap box to rant now...
I think people who are really against the idea of people buying 'clones', need to consider if they actually can tell what is and what isn't 'legit'. Over the years, I've come across a lot of snobbery, against products made in China. For some reason, some people see an item from China and they immediately, like a knee jerk reaction, think it must be a clone or patent rip off. Is this fair, or just prejudice?
At one point in time Xerox was the brand for a copier, and Kleenex the brand for a facial tissue. But now there are many other companies in the western world producing photo copiers and facial tissue. Who knows who was the original patent holder, and who is selling another similar product, and if it is legit. Who cares when using a Canon or generic brand Kleenex? Many of us (where I'm from) all say, pass me a "Kleenex", but we don't really know or care what brand the stuff is, we just want to blow our nose. How about the can opener patented in 1855... no one cares today if the item we bought to open our cans is legit... we can't even imagine such a thing ever having or needing patent protection!
Does Zippo Inc. remain the only company in the world with the rights to make a napatha oil lighter with a metal body, lid and flint sparker? It's such a basic design. Unless you investigate the actual patenting rights and laws... who knows? I like my Star brand lighter that looks quite similar to the Zippo brand. I'll bet Zippo Inc. would love for everyone in the world to believe that no one else can ever produce a similar lighter. Does Zippo Inc. here in the Western world have the legal right to tell every other factory in the whole darn world what they can or can't create, because Zippo did it first? Talk about limiting human progress and innovation.
Imagine if the Chinese, who did it first, prevented the rest of the world from making their own black powder, block printing, silk, the compass, paper, and so on. The list is endless. But of course today, powerful western countries will try and do this today with our technologies we 'invent'.
I've noticed lately that many of the products for sale in our stores that were made in China, are repackaged and rebranded differently by a different distributor. Sometimes you'll see the same product sold in a different store under another brand. Who invented this product originally? Could it be that it was a Chinese designer? Who knows? I get the impression that many of our companies are simply looking through catalogs of items being made in China and deciding which product they want to put their brand on, and buy distribution rights to.
Also, the very item we respect as 'legit' was made in China. On many Chinese sites there are knives branded with corporate logos that are about the exact size and shape as what is shown by the company as the 'current model'. Many people will immediately scream 'clone' or 'rip off'...
For example, I bought on Ebay a Gerber branded knife, that looks almost identical to the EVO jr. The Evo Jr. when in retail packaging at a store is MSRP for $20. When I buy it from China it's $10. Now do you think that if Gerber has a 100 spare blades that didn't make the quality control that they dump them into the scrap metal pile? Really? How about the Gerber contracted factory that also needs to turn a profit despite low profit margins? Who really knows if the knife I bought, from the OEM without packaging, is 'legit'. Ok, so it wasn't bought in this country at my local stores. I don't really want to support Walmart, and I think the taxes here are far too high anyway.
When people start hating on the made in China gear, they soon go all patriotic about losing factory jobs to foreign countries. Yet one of the biggest employers here is Toyota. If I start hating on foreign auto companies, or buyers of foreign brand vehicles, for the sake of American motor companies, I start promoting the idea that most people in my city should be unemployed. That just doesn't makes sense.
Consider why a major western company has contracted/built a factory in China in the first place. Perhaps the blame lies in Corporate greed and expectations for large profit margins by shareholders? Maybe we need to lower our minimum wage in Western countries to be more competitive with the 3 billion workers in China and India? Perhaps globalization is a 'game changer' and people need to stop thinking in a paradigm that made sense hundreds of years ago.
In China, the scale of the society and rate of growth is so large it's mind blowing. There are 'copies' of 'copies' of 'copies'. There are so many factories producing a variation of the same product, no one can really determine what is 'authentic', except if the end buyer is happy that it works and does what you want. So few really care who 'invented' it first. If I'm living on less than a dollar a day, and struggling to make ends meet, I'm just happy to get basic tools at a cost I can afford.
Currently, workers from poor countries are somehow travelling thousands of miles across countries just so they can get back breaking jobs. Jobs that no one here is willing to do for minimum wage. It starts at a young age, the 'sense of entitlement' that our young people have had for decades. It's scary how often I observe teenagers being unwilling to put forward a fraction of the effort it's going to take for them to survive in an increasingly competitive world. But what are the chances we're willing to actually be competitive with workers in China and India and work for a minimum wage that's a couple dollars a day without benefits? What are the chances our society is willing to pay 10 times as much for products to be made locally by local workers at current wages? Such things are unlikely, so people continue to buy inexpensive products made overseas.
Thankyou for actually giving me any attention. I'll step off the soap box now...