They could just as well set up a duplicate factory down the street, across town, or in another city. The equipment and supply chains are not secret because there’s little or no respect for intellectual property (which to be fair is a big reason the USA became an industrial powerhouse in the past). They have numerous ways to get around foreign auditors.
I think Francis_Vaughan’s post perfectly summed up the watch industry perfectly, so I will just add my personal experience.
I own 3 “replica” watches, with 3 excuses:
- A Breguet Marine, that I did not know was a replica, because I hadn’t heard of Breguet at the time
- A Rolex submariner, that a friend asked me to purchase for him but then messed me around when it was time to do the transaction
- A moonswatch, at a time when real ones were going for crazy money, and it’s a plastic watch, so I thought I’d just see what the hype was about with a replica
All 3 are very high quality. I know that the rolex is close enough that you cannot tell it is not real without magnification. The breguet probably isn’t; Breguet make intricate watches and there’s not enough of a market to spend money perfectly copying them, but it’s still a beautiful watch with a smooth sweep.
The moonswatch is actually superior to the real thing, having a “mechaquartz” movement for the chrono hand and being more robust.
All of the watch channels / reviewers tell their viewers to never buy replicas, giving reasons about supporting the industry and counterfeiting supporting crime. I would say, I don’t care about the watch companies: a lot the market is about fake scarcity and other dubious tactics. And I am skeptical about the crime argument (it reminds me a lot of the ads about pirating music or whatever from back in the day).
But I would still recommend not to buy replicas, if only because you always have the concern that someone will ask “Is that a real Daytona?!” In my case, I am in the process of putting a custom dial on the Submariner, to make it clear I am not trying to pass it off as the real thing.
I remember back in Elementary school, a classmate brought in a copy of a full page ad warning about “softlifting”. He explained that he hadn’t known all his pirated video games were illegal. He had thrown them all out after reading the ad. He showed us the ad, expecting us to have the same reaction. Our reaction was to point at him and laugh. I had assumed all along that the copies of games I had were illegal. I just didn’t care.
If somebody can prove that a knock off or counterfeit is inferior in some significant way, I will buy the real thing. If they cannot prove that, they have essentially proven that the name brand is overcharging us.
OTTOMH A friend gave me a Retron 5 console. It supports controllers and games for- the Famicom, NES, SNES, and Genesis. The Famicom was never sold in the US. I have an NES. I have to find it and see if it still works. I never owned an SNES or Genesis. Now that I have excellent and free emulators, and illegal roms can be found easily on the web I was going to get rid of my NES cartridges. I now have a reason to keep them and to buy more. So, I will be buying more Nintendo endorsed products, because of an unendorsed knock off product.
I dunno, I would tend to see software a little bit differently. Of course, as a kid, I pirated lots of things without a thought, but nowadays I only torrent stuff that is difficult to impossible to buy legitimately (like, as you say, games on old consoles).
Yep, but as I say, bear in mind for something like a watch that they are also a status symbol. So if you are going to wear a replica, be prepared to answer the question of whether it is real. OTOH, there are plenty of brands that make watches essentially as good as the luxury brands, for a fraction of the price, and use their own branding. These serve as the majority of my collection.
A little aside:
A little while back I had access to significant funds in a foreign account that I couldn’t easily transfer, so I thought to buy a (real) luxury watch (it’s a long story, for the sake of this thread let me just stress it was nothing illegal). I spent several days trying on watches and in the end bought nothing and that money still lingers in that account.
I just couldn’t hand over new car money for something that goes on my wrist, no matter how shiny.
I don’t download pirated copies of new software mostly because my laptop will not run them. I have never really needed a high end, cutting edge gaming laptop. I had to stop playing Legend Of Zelda-Twilight Princess on my last laptop because it became glacially slow during combat. I do download an awful lot of what is commonly called abandonware. Some of it, I even have legitimate copies of. They are on floppy disks or can not be used for other reasons. I have honestly and genuinely tried to legally buy a copy of each Leisure Suit Larry game when it came out. Al Lowe, the creator, writer, head programmer, and a bunch of othe stuff on LSL has been offering free downloads of every game he has ever made on his website. He also shares advice from fans on getting them to run on current systems. This makes me love and respect him even more. My Mom knew I wanted a copy of the latest LSL game. She bought one and had it shipped to me. Unfortunately, the new copy she bought is for the PS5. Rather than getting a pirated copy, I will wait until I have PS5 and play it then.
Conspicuous waste never made sense to me. If I felt like wearing a counterfeit Rolex, and people asked if it was real, my likely answer would be “Of course not! I waste money on antiques and collectible toys, not overpriced watches!”
My sister often complains that I should sell all my antiques and collectibles. She drives an Alfa Romeo. Yes, it is a very nice car. IMO it is not nice enough to justify the price. When she can explain how driving an Alfa Romeo instead of some cheaper car with the same functionality is not a waste of money, then and only then will I listen to anything she has to say about my wasting of my money.
As the famous saying has it: “Most of my money I spent on wine, women and song. The rest I wasted.”
What each of us consider to be our personal “wine, women, and song” is our business. For me it’s cars and hotels (and women, wine, and song which go best together 
).
My most expensive watch came from an outlet mall and cost $79. My primary watch that I wore for 30+ years but don’t wear at all since I retired was a black plastic Casio I originally got at K-Mart. Had to replace it a few times, but always a basic model for ~$20.
Whatever floats your ( any “your”) boat is a fine thing.
I have difficulty imagining people who, casually observing someone check the time on their watch, lean over to gawk at it and then demand to know if it’s “real”.
I suppose one could accidentally run into a watch obsessive. 
It happens from time to time.
They’re a bit tightly wound up.
They may not actually use the word “real” but yes, if I wear my submariner out, to work events, or any other time I need to “mingle”, probably one or two people will ask “Is that a Submariner?”
Well, one or two men
I guess it depends where you are too. If it’s a group of lawyers then everyone has a luxury watch and there would be little curiosity about yours. Unless it was a Richard Mille or something.
Can someone summarize what the factual question answer was in this thread? All I can deduce is “some people have an image issue” or “oh I got a fake ____ before” and “sometimes it doesn’t matter…”
OP asked and answered I thought, though maybe not cleanly in a single post.
Q: “Are fakes deliberately low quality, and if so, is it some kind of legal protection?”
A: “They aren’t always low quality, and no, it’s neither deliberate nor would protect the counterfitter (assuming they are copying the actual brand name)”
You have to keep a watch out for them.
???
Really not getting this. If the stupidly expensive watch isn’t still functional on the day I die, why would I buy another one, even more stupidly expensive? And if it is, why would I buy another watch, ever?
That reminds me. Does the winner of the Indy 500 get the pink slips of all the other cars?
Conspicous consumption. Nobody needs a Rolex. I can get a watch with as good a warrantee and that will keep perfect time, for much, much less.
- If you want a desirable Rolex, you need to build up a “relationship” with the authorized dealer, buying somewhat less desirable Rolexes until, maybe in a few years time, you get the phonecall that you can now come in and buy the $40,000 watch. Yes, really.
(Of course, you can avoid this by buying watches on the gray market, but this tangent is about the Rolex dealerships themselves.) - Watches are basically the middle-aged man’s high-top sneakers. For many people, no sooner have they bought their dream Omega now they have a dream of a Breitling, or whatever.
It’s been the same for me (and I am indeed middle-aged), so I own many watches. But, as mentioned upthread, I couldn’t bring myself to buy a luxury watch, let alone put up with the Rolex rudeness. The most expensive watch I own cost about $400.
You have a collection of watches? The only reason I would have a collection of watches is so I could pin them to the inside of my coat on Halloween and go trick-or-treating as a shady guy in a Soho alleyway.
Haha – both for the joke and that we kind of posted over each other.
Basically
- I like to have something on my wrist, and wristbands look too young for me now
- I like my watch to broadly match metals / formality with the rest of what I’m wearing
That’s how I got to ~4-5 watches, and then the next 6 or 7 watches was from getting the bug. I accept it’s not rational at that point. But as addictions go, it’s not a costly one. Yet.
People collect anything and everything.I cannot remember what program it was part of, but they interviewed a man who collected post-mortem photographs. For a time, it was customary to take a photograph of the face of a corpse while the coffin lid was open during ceremonies, The man shared that people selling these photos often did not know that they were photos of corpses. When he explained this to them, people were often shocled and disgusted and gave him the photos for free.
Do you really not get the concept of people collecting nice things? Think of it like jewelry for men. Do wealthy traditional women only have one necklace or set of earrings?