I really hate that I have to say this, but this was just supposed to be a funny story. "Chinesium", "yum cha", and "Short Fiction" were clues.
I'm aware that because a market for substandard but drastically cheaper parts exist, more of those substandard parts are made available. Stuff that failed QA, so called "third shift" output, salvaged parts, inventory that fell off the back of a truck, etc.
And I think this is a *good* thing.
When I was doing my final-year project at school (Computer Engineering Technology), there were no cheap Chinese sources for parts. There were a couple of electronic supply houses in town that cost an absolute fortune. The cheapest way to get parts was DigiKey. I got four of my classmates together to do one bigger order, to get quantity discounts and split the shipping charge.
Plain through-hole resistors in common values were $0.25 -- each. After minimal income tax at minimum wage, that meant I could work for an hour and afford maybe 12 resistors. Virtually everything else was measured in dollars apiece. It cost a bloody fortune just to build my project (a computer-controlled slot machine).
I'd always been interested in hobby electronics, but I and many others simply couldn't afford to participate.
Now I can go on AliExpress and order an assorted kit of tens of pieces of each of dozens of common values of 10% resistor for four bucks, including delivery. A hundred dual FET op-amps for ten bucks.
1/2
