Some hours later, reviewing all responses...
The primary counter argument to mine requires an inversion of responsibilities and ascribes criminality to the victim.
Devices got bricked because counterfeiters committed a crime in the first place.
Along the same lines, there are supply chain questions that are impossible to answer:
How many of these device manufacturers knowingly used fake chips because they cost less?
How many distributors knowingly shipped fake components because, again, they cost less and delivered higher margins?
How many device manufacturers were true innocent victims who did not know fake devices had been substituted for the real thing?
How many failures of import controls led to consumers receiving devices with fake chips?
I have had the experience of having major US electronics parts distributors knowingly substitute defective --yet genuine-- parts instead of the top grade parts we ordered. The effect was what the hardware sector generally refers to as "infant mortality", where your hardware fails early or becomes unreliable due to substandard components.
It took months for these effects to come out into the open and for the major US distributor to own up to this against the threat on our part of legal action. Not only did they replace all components with legitimate top grade parts, they also paid the costs involved in replacing the affected systems for our customers.
My guess is that the context lacking most, if not all, who disagree with my position perspective that comes from having "skin in the game" in the domain we are discussing.
The knee-jerk reaction is to think bricking these devices is bad for consumers, as if that would have been the end of the story. No, in a properly functioning economy and legal system this would and should lead to tracing through levels of responsibility as far as possible, with consumers being made whole with properly engineered and manufactured devices.
The end result of forcing FTDI to not protect their product from counterfeiters is that not one consumer today can be assured the devices they purchase has quality reliable parts that will function according to specifications. A chip can, quite literally, go up in flames (I had this happen to me with a cheap Chinese device) because we did not support FTDI in disallowing fake chips from the market.
Sure, there would have been short term pain and a bunch of companies and suppliers fixing their pipelines and designs. Yet, we would have emerged with an above-average guarantee of quality and performance and counterfeiters thinking real hard before doing what they do.
Instead the feedback we gave counterfeiters is "you win".
And the result we obtained for consumers is "you lose, forever".
This incident extends well past FTDI. Because the mob won and forced FTDI to accept fakes it now means nobody is going to take similar steps towards protecting their products. Which, in turn, means counterfeiters know they won and know they can get away with it. Consumers, once more, lose, big and in unknown ways.
We are swimming in a sea of fake products. The only way to stop this is if fake products become losing propositions for producers, suppliers, manufacturers and consumers.
I mentioned I had a chip go up in flames. A while back I bought a little humanoid robot directly from a vendor in China. One of these things with 15 to 20 servos and, typically, a mobile phone class processor powering it and the touch screen on the chest. I bought several of them as part of a business venture.
A couple of days after receiving them one of my kids was working with it on the table in the garage. As the robot walked, it failed to take a step and fell. It just planked onto the table, a 90 degree rotation from the toes, nothing too dramatic.
In an instant flames were shooting out of the chest. Flames, not smoke. Since we were in the garage it was an easy matter to open the door and toss the thing onto the driveway.
Upon inspection we found a crater at the center of the ARM processor on the main board. It failed and took a bunch of other parts with it.
I contacted the company and very specifically asked about the source of this processor. We were actually considering importing and modifying this robot in quantity for educational purposes. In other words, we had established an engineering relationship with this company, this wasn't a case of just another consumer buying their product.
They pretty much told me they bought the cheapest ARM processor clone they could source in China.
This was and was not a revelation to me. Having done business with China for some time, as well as having a number of friends and business acquaintances doing business in China, nothing surprises me any more.
The degree of supervision and cross checking you have to engage in when doing business with China is impossible for someone outside of manufacturing to grasp. It takes a lot of work to ensure safe products are landed in Europe and the US. When you deal with European or US companies this requirement almost disappears because you can generally trust they will deliver what they agreed to supply at the required level of quality.
Taking the case of this real product, this robot, as an example, it would have been far better if --through whatever mechanism-- the thing had been bricked by the processor manufacturer before it got into the hands of any consumer.
I cringe to think that this company likely sold tens of thousands of these units into homes and schools that could, due to fake chip issues and low component quality, go up in flames any time. We got lucky in that the robot ignited while we were there and under circumstances that were easy to control. This could have happened in the middle of the night and the story would have been potentially horrific.
Be careful to think that allowing consumers to be fed fake products of unknown quality and traceability equates to having a pro-consumer stance.
Due to this FTDI event it is likely consumers today have no clue what quality and safety has gone into the products they are using. This is not a good outcome. The right path would have been to take the pain of fixing the real problem and make consumers whole through both corporate responsibility and the legal system.
In other words, FTDI is a victim and consumers are now even larger victims because the fake chip content of their devices is likely to go well beyond a little USB chip. No way to know how far and wide this has gone. A clear case of good intentions actually causing more damage to consumers.
OK, I'm done. I don't expect to change anyone's mind. Just stating a perspective I think many don't have because they don't have practical experience at scale in the world of hardware manufacturing and support. If it makes even one person think this through, research and perhaps understand, I am satisfied.
Be tolerant of contrasting perspectives...you might just be wrong and not know it...or, even worse, one day you will be correct and the mob will dismiss you just as you have to others when you think you are right.
Tolerance is important. Don't punish, dismiss and ignore those who you do not agree with because one day that person could be you.