Stop buying “brands”, and looking for “deals” and acting like a consumer. Do research and find high quality products, pay more for those products, buy less disposable junk. This isn’t just a “China” thing it’s in general.
At least (maybe it varies state by state) Massachusetts has an “implied warranty of merchantability,” the thing has to basically work at least for a little bit.
I mean, if the bolt-holes don’t line up, they didn’t just sell you a bad <thing>, they sold you a random sheet of metal that is not <thing>.
But, I wouldn’t characterize it as “karenesque” to expect your tools to do what they say on the box.
But yeah, what people think of as good, high-quality brands often are not.
If you're buying good copper cookware the manufacturer "brand" matters, they build a reputation for having quality products, ideally continue to make those quality products at a fair price, etc. and life is good.
But then there are brands and unfortunately when we use the term brand we wind up lumping together "high quality brands" with "cheap, useless dog shit products" and it can be difficult to differentiate. At least for me and my limited vocabulary.
Avoid the former like the plague, but the latter is one of the best methods to find legitimately great stuff.
If you have any recommendations or ideas I'd be happy to collaborate! Doesn't need to be something that makes money, though hopefully something that doesn't cost money either! Lol
Craftsman for example.
Smuggling is the world's second-oldest profession. Trade finds a way.
The majority of parts of "Swiss Made" watches are made in China, utilizing a loophole that requires 60% of the watch's cost to be manufactured and assembled in Switzerland. So they make a rotor made out of gold in Switzerland, which accounts for 60% of the COGS of the watch, pop the rotor on the movement, and the sapphire glass on the watch, and it's "Swiss Made."
Best source, a rabbit hole: https://monochrome-watches.com/h-moser-cie-launches-swiss-ma...
Replicas are also manufactured in the same factories as "authentic" watches, but are fully assembled in China. (my personal insider anecdote)
"Investigators who work for Rolex and others say high-end fakes are “made in the same industrial parks and on cloned CNC machines”": https://www.businessinsider.com/how-counterfeit-rolexes-work...
"2025 “superfake” TAG Heuer Aquaracers used real Swiss Sellita movements inside Chinese-made cases—proof of parts leakage, if not identical factory floors": https://www.heddels.com/2025/03/spotting-a-superfake-4-real-...
You start with this, but then the rest of your comment is totally unrelated. Could you elaborate?
That's the argument as I see it at least. I tend to mostly agree, with some carve-outs for highly specialized industry and general "social" differences in how business is typically done.
At this point, if you need basic manufacturing - China seems unbeatable on both price and quality for the vast majority of items. Not to mention lead times and iteration speed.
Also on that note Robots are going to have to become real cheap, I suspect the reason they are so good at everything is because there is so much competition from 1+ billion people its that cutthroat
Robots will have to become cheaper than all these people assembling a generic bluetooth speaker or the price will go up eventually tariffs or not...go ahead count the number of people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYxSX6xP2U
Disregard my comment.
> What kind of idiot US seller hasn’t had their Chinese factory also write in a lower value on the import invoice?
Why do people on X think Americans don’t cheat the system too?