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Comment by punkybr3wster | Hacker News Reader

> reduce production costs to get down to similar price points

How on earth is anyone supposed to compete with near slave labor in China?

Certainly you can't get a similar product made at the rock-bottom price points that China will ship it for. But, you can get a lot cheaper than Prusa, and there are vulnerabilities in the Chinese market you can exploit.

And, to be honest, Chinese manufacturing is not the open slave market it used to be. They've cleaned up their act quite a lot, and the quality of life in Shenzhen isn't that bad. China isn't winning just because they have cheap labor, but also because they have made numerous innovations and smart investments in manufacturing. The poverty rate is only 6% higher in Shenzhen than in San Francisco.

The reports are that their is still plenty of de-facto slave labor out there. The Uighur's for instance are heavily used as slave labor in re-education camps. I think it very much matters which industry and what commodities you are sourcing. Also we are pretty sure that the official reporting on this from China is heavily doctored. I'm not sure where you got your numbers from but I'm pretty sure I don't trust them.

Both the average income and the cost of living is significantly lower in China than in a typical Western country, which inevitably translates into lower production costs, regardless of whether/how much "slave labor" was involved.

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