No easy answers and everyone gets to make up there own minds. I don't judge people's budget's or buying choices but in many ways I fear the culture is turning a blind eye to the bigger picture. Cigarettes are expensive, so if you're replacing cigs, I don't
buy into the "I can't afford more than a 15 dollar mechs and atty". We all have to make our choices, and buying the more expensive option means looking for other ways to fit it into the budget. My good buddy living off 10k a year, well ok buy a clone. Actually by a china branded chepo, not a clone.
When I say our culture is turning a blind eye, I'm referring to many issue's here. Qorax posted a good video on china counterfeits recently (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kiMofP9sGg). The factory counterfeiting Addidas, during it's third shut down raid, had children's music playing. No it wasn't for the daycare, the kids were the labor force. The factor was owned by the town's party official,
at least none of our (USA) government official's are corrupt or swayed by industry.. Listened to a good NPR broadcast on what has happened to furniture production
How A Factory Man Fought To Save His Furniture Company : NPR. China manufacturing is absolutely waging war...Well, I'm in business to make money too. Free market...but fair market. Counterfeit is wrong, cloning other people's intellectual property without agreement with the intellectual property owner is wrong. I've seen another documentary on netflix about china's unfair trade practices (may have been
Death By China - the Documentary Film by Director Peter Navarro). Artificially manipulating relative currency value, stomping all over patents, intellectual property, etc. They've essentially socialised shipping. In many cases they have 30-50% price advantage before you even touch on labor costs, material cost advantages, manufacturing equipment cost advantages or big vs small product runs; no it's not all bad business plans. The netflix documentary had a great example where the china companies profit was triple, product cost half, and the US company had something like a 4% margin; the US company didn't make it. The Euro VAT's can be tough, but Germany's looks to apply it in common sense ways to level the playing field. What does it cost a German citizen with reasonable business to produce the product in Germany at a reasonable margin? That Chinese made bike is in the same price ballpark as the German bike at the store's in Munchen. If you don't have kids manufacturing your gear in sweat shops at 75 cents a day, and you want your workers to be able to see a doctor, feed their family, and not live in a hovel, yeah that costs money and everyone in the chain needs to get paid. The living conditions in those factory cities are not good. I don't exactly feel right about throwing my money at that...
Our consumer culture, even capitalism itself tends to support this, is of the mindset we need lots of everything. It's fine to break and replace. spend spend spend. Quality is not rewarded, the manufacturer wants it to break (slightly out of warranty) so we go and buy another. I'm sick of dealing with all this broken crap. Walk out of Wall Mart with your short term warranty that they wouldn't honor in the first place...but hey, saved 5 bux. When I say it's not easy, there aren't always good alternatives. So many times shopping I say OK, what does double get me, and all to often it's the same crap with a bell that rings twice and breaks and a whistle that blows outside of my hearing range. It's throw away waste. Make use of your resources, buy quality you don't have to replace and it will save you time and money in the long run.
Ack not all china goods are crap. Sure the Fogger 4 is not a clone even if the prior version was.
That being said it doesn't make it easy. Looking at a speaker mount which can hold up more than a feather, the cheap china version is $15, the "label brand" version made in china is 30, the "made in the usa option" is $100, ouch. Digging deeper into the made in the usa option because I needed more info on the mounting compatibility (threading, pattern, keyhole, etc), I randomly ended up on one of their pages that made reference to the president splitting time between USA and China manufacturing facilities. .... Does "made in the USA" mean assembled in usa, re-branded, what? Lets pay a middleman to price jack? Global economy is very complex; a higher % of the buying price of a toyota camry stays in America than buying a ford or chevy. I'm far from USA only buying, but want patents respected and a quasi level playing field; at least what the market provides and not artificial manipulation and artificial unfair advantages (the shipping thing). We exported manufacturing and it is biting us in the economy hard right now. Quick everyone go start mod companies (or other manufacturing). I'm being serious. On second thought looks like the FDA will shut you down so prolly a bad idea.
And after all that rant, I don't own a provari, neither of my two authentic mechs are US, my RTA is from Austria, one US made dripper. For me, personally, I don't like where the clones are taking us, it bothers me personally, and I'll have less and save for the authentics. Time is on my side without those stinkies. The quality difference and vape experience is a big factor for me as well. For the price of these 4 items I could have a different settup for each day of the month. They'd be low quality crap I hated though so that's not the right path,
for me.
Take what you like and ignore the rest. No I don't hate, judge, or look down on clone users. Hope you all were willing to hear me out though and maybe take something from it. Yes I listen to the clone user's points. Some are very good, some not so much.
