Sebastian29Some commentary on this. I'm not passing judgement; it's just the environment that western developers have created for themselves.
A lot of times when things get sent overseas for manufacture, a copy is made by whomever is in charge of the factory. Then, while they are making parts for the original company, they use almost the identical design themselves, and sell it locally. Depending on which patents are in place, it might even get sold back to the original market as a competitor. And the original designers can't do anything about it because they would be trying to fight a legal battle against a huge manufacturing infrastructure, which they can't afford.
Lets say FACE/Phantom Glass decides to pursue this company and gets them to shut down with a monetary compensation. That company can just fold, and then pop up later under a different name, repeating the cycle. So the only guys that lose are FACE.
The only way to prevent this is if FACE were large enough to wholly own the factory overseas with proper security and contracting and legal and all that. Again, quite expensive, but then they would be able to justify and maintain a higher margin prices because you won't be able to get it any where else for a while.
That's the gist of it. So when you find a product ridiculously cheap and just as good, it's because it's exactly as good, stolen from the original source design.
A lot of times when things get sent overseas for manufacture, a copy is made by whomever is in charge of the factory. Then, while they are making parts for the original company, they use almost the identical design themselves, and sell it locally. Depending on which patents are in place, it might even get sold back to the original market as a competitor. And the original designers can't do anything about it because they would be trying to fight a legal battle against a huge manufacturing infrastructure, which they can't afford.
Lets say FACE/Phantom Glass decides to pursue this company and gets them to shut down with a monetary compensation. That company can just fold, and then pop up later under a different name, repeating the cycle. So the only guys that lose are FACE.
The only way to prevent this is if FACE were large enough to wholly own the factory overseas with proper security and contracting and legal and all that. Again, quite expensive, but then they would be able to justify and maintain a higher margin prices because you won't be able to get it any where else for a while.
That's the gist of it. So when you find a product ridiculously cheap and just as good, it's because it's exactly as good, stolen from the original source design.