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Comment by zkmon | Hacker News Reader

"Dupe" might need to be more specific. What is copied? Is it design, brand name, quality, parts or functionality? What is not to be copied? and why?

Dupe might affect the seller, but customer doesn't care much. In the past, people had to go by brand name as an assurance of quality. We have other means now. Reviews from other buyers, detailed specifications, return policies - all reduced the moat of branding. People can now buy any brand that has specifications they want, use reviews for quality assurance and it's easy to return the product if required. Brand is not playing the same role it used to.

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We have nothing of the sort. Reviews are bought and manipulated at scale. Dupe brands come and go month to month. Very few of the electronics I've bought on Amazon in the last 8 years are still for sale, but for most of them there are current listings with the same pictures and a "different" brand name.

Most reviews that aren't fake are useless and written within the first few days of ownership anyway .

Also Amazon very intentionally structures it's business to allow these activities to happen.

Like stock mixing.

> In the past, people had to go by brand name as an assurance of quality. We have other means now.

Yeah, brand reputation doesn't work as a guide to quality any more.

But I don't think we have any other means of reliably identifying quality yet.

> what is not being copied and why?

Most counterfeits goods skimp on manufacturing quality. Like instead of very detailed stitching with intricate design they might just skip that altogether. For instance one of the easiest ways to identify dupes is if the brand name and design on a bag 'flows' to the other side. Obv counterfeits dont really care because they want to save money

For counterfeit goods that are so high quality 1) they would only show pictures of it, not the real thing and 2) only cost like 1/3 of the brand price.

Aka that $600 bag would still cost $200 if it had identical quality. This is all based on what business owners told me from when I visited counterfeit markets in China

For luxury brand bags that cost $2-10k you pay around $300-600 for high quality counterfeits, but they really are almost identical. Sometimes they are higher quality.

There are entire subreddits these days dedicated to reviewing fashion reps.

And the amount some people throw on products just because they're reps.

£15K rolex for £2k, yeah no thanks.

Do consumers care? Almost always not. But to say the quality is the same is incorrect

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