> After all, The knockoff is just as good or better than the authentic.

I think this may be over optimistic—the fact that counterfeits can be same quality doesn't mean they always, or even often, are. There are product categories where the difference is not apparent even to trained casual inspection, but there are real quality or even safety sacrifices.

You don't generally have to trust. If you do your research you can buy a counterfeit of the highest quality which is often better than the product.

There are counterfeits that are of low quality, with a suitably even lower price, but by doing some research you can often tell.

This is a big problem for sneakers, counterfeits are often literally impossible for anyone to distinguish. In my high school a kid would be selling knock offs of hyped shoes and brought them to official stores or specialized resellers and got them appraised as authentic, repeatedly.

Now I hear through the grapevine that they have to use things like the rigidity of the cardboard in the box they came in with to try and figure out fakes, because the shoe itself is just too close to tell.

Ultimately there's nothing magic to the original. The products are generally much cheaper to make than they are sold, so there is no reason why someone couldn't make a version with better materials at the same cost. It's a question of imaginary property and signaling more than anything.

Not all counterfeits are "counterfeit". Some literally come off the same production line as the legit products. A company will order say 20,000 units from a factory but because of overages in components it's actually cheaper (or not more expensive) to manufacture 22,000 units. They can then sell that 2k unit overproduction to a counterfeit dealer for pennies on the dollar, or fractions of a penny on the penny, to make a nice little bonus.

Manufacturing can often be like hot dogs and hot dog buns. The end product is a hot dog in a bun but hot dogs come in ten packs while buns come in four packs each for their own reasons. The most efficient combinations of dogs and buns are common multiples but demand isn't always in those neat numbers. Storing the dogs and buns can be expensive and they will go bad so there's no guarantee you can ever use your stock of stored buns and dogs. If there's a counterfeit market for complete hot dog units you can unload the overproduction and not need to worry about storage or spoilage. You're in the hot dog construction business, not hot dog component storage business.

Clothes are particularly susceptible to the overproduction/counterfeit market.

Certainly there's likely to be no reason that knock-offs can't be the same quality as, or better than, the original for much less price—but making the knock-offs appear to be the same quality while actually being lower quality is even cheaper still. As a counterfeiter, why wouldn't you make the cheaper product if no-one can tell the difference?

I am thinking here particularly of counterfeit chargers, which are designed to mimic the originals to comical extremes—so that you essentially wouldn't know without tearing them apart—but which are missing crucial safeguards that mean that they are much more prone to catch fire. If, as ClumsyPilot suggests (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573695), you are thinking only of fashion items, then it's probably less of an issue.

You don't because there is a very very competitive market for counterfeits of these products. For some shoes there might be five or six counterfeiters competing so they may distinguish themselves with higher quality and uphold a reputation that way.

Then there is a whole community of people that evaluate which batches are of higher or lower quality. Personally I don't buy counterfeits at all, the hyped shoes nowadays are just reskins of old designs and aren't that comfortable or imo look that exceptional.

Certainly, don't buy counterfeits that plug into mains though, unless you really really really know what you're doing.

I think the kind of product in question has a big role. A handbag should be relatively easy to inspect; look at the seams and look at the material. If both are robust and you like the way the bag looks, then it's a good bag regardless of authenticity. But on the other hand, what about something like wristwatches? To inspect all the parts you would need to tear it apart, which just isn't feasible before purchase [if at all.]

All I know about wristwatches is you can tell a faux Rolex from a real one by the faux sweep hands move in increments, while the real one moves smoothly.

I couldn't care less, and wear a cheap Timex because I regularly ruin them (usually by scraping).

That's what everyone "knows" about fake Rolexes, and it isn't true and hasn't been for a long time. 10 years ago I bought a Rolex for $15 in China that had a smooth sweep.

A street vendor in New York once tried to convince me to buy a Rolex with the pitch "It's got real Seiko parts inside!"

In Bangkok, the fake watch dealers offer grades of product, giving you the option to pay more for a better fake.

I think he is talking about a large category of product where you 'pay for the brand', the whole point is being outrageously expensive and exclusive. Thing diamons and designer handbags.

I had a fake "Gucci" watch in the 90s that looked ok on the outside, but just picking it up you knew it wasn't the real deal. Someone gave me as a gag gift. Opening it showed the case was a good match, but the inside was just a generic battery powered quartz watch. kept good time though.

I am visiting Turkey every year or two and every time I am going to local bazar to buy counterfeited clothing. They are more or less of the same quality (Turkey is a source of high quality cotton and linen) and really good fit because counterfeiters just cloning original articles piece-by-piece, seam-by-seam. Maybe buttons and zippers are of lower quality, but they are repairable, so I am okay with that.

I think that paying hundreds and even thousands for industrially manufactured shirts, jeans and underwear just for its brand is universally stupid.