Why is this sub so okay with fakes?

Hi all,

Genuine question (I'm not trying to be abrasive - but I am of the opinion that this is a problem): why is this sub so okay with Chinese clones/fakes? I understand that of course everyone has their own budgetary constraints etc. - but there is an enormous variety of great fountain pens at every price point, without having to resort to Chinese knock-offs of other brands' work. Of course your jinhaos and majohns etc. are often perfectly serviceable and some even work well - but they're necessarily worse, less reliable, and will last less long, than the designs they rip off (even where they modify the designs), and even just than the "cheaper" models from reputable companies. And that's without even beginning to talk about Chinese production standards/conditions, environmental (dis)respect/waste, or anything even vaguely political. Supporting these cloning companies also necessarily means not putting your money into the companies doing the real r&d/innovation to drive the industry forward.

So for those of you that are spending e.g. 20$/€/£ on a Chinese replica, why not, for example, just buy a Lamy Safari, or a Pilot Kakuno? And for those of you that have e.g. 5 or 10 or 20 of these Chinese clones, and so who are spending more money in any case, why not just buy one more expensive "real" pen, and really treasure it?

Edit. Most commenting seem to be deliberately misreading my post, or reading it selectively. Pretty disappointing, frankly - and I suspect just because people don't want to take responsibility for supporting practices that are at best suboptimal, and at worst harmful, for all the reasons listed above.