When I was working for a microprocessor company (which you use everyday) many many years ago, they were selling this JTAG debugger for a few thousand $ each. The cpu architecture was booming in China at that time, but that $ figure is not something people can afford. Clones started to flood the market pretty fast, a typical clone set you back for a few hundred $, that was already 1/10 of the original price.
However, that was still considered too expensive - then there was this vendor in Shanghai which came up a clone they sell for around $100 - after talking to them via some unofficial channels, we figured out that they had people stationed in those electronics dump sites to source the chips required. In those place, you don't pay for each chip, you pay for a kg price, e.g. I want 10kg of that chip, how much each kg please?
10+ years on, those engineers who first studied that CPU architecture back then using those cloned JTAG debugger are now pretty experienced/better paid, they are probably the ones complaining fake/reused chips on some Chinese forums claiming they are the victims.
The problem with faking chips is that the victims maybe out of a warranty claim later when they find a problem. Also there might be subtle differences which will only be found when in full production. For a cloned JTAG debugger the risks are lower since they are used in low volumes. Personally I think they it is okay to clone or reuse chips but don't claim to be the original manufacturer. It is quite easy to relabel chip with your own imprint.
I think a bigger problem with the 'chips by the kg' mindset, is that there is zero incentive and zero funding to develop good software to go along with the hardware.
Companies who are successful have spent way more time in ensuring that their software works reliably with their debuggers, across a wide range of chips and platforms. Sure it's expensive, but everything just works.
By 'stealing' this software in this way, cloning firms are dragging the entire industry down with the clones that don't work 100%, or the IoT devices that get infected due to lack of any security. I'm really hoping some certification body like UL, or major distributor like Amazon or Alibaba, steps in and starts ensuring at least a basic level of quality for hardware and software.
However, that was still considered too expensive - then there was this vendor in Shanghai which came up a clone they sell for around $100 - after talking to them via some unofficial channels, we figured out that they had people stationed in those electronics dump sites to source the chips required. In those place, you don't pay for each chip, you pay for a kg price, e.g. I want 10kg of that chip, how much each kg please?
10+ years on, those engineers who first studied that CPU architecture back then using those cloned JTAG debugger are now pretty experienced/better paid, they are probably the ones complaining fake/reused chips on some Chinese forums claiming they are the victims.