The real problem is the technology was stolen from a company who invested in developing a product, someone else stole that R&D and threw out a discount product with no investment in development.
The original developer provided good jobs for its personnel, both in R&D and production, the knock off company "not so much". It makes it pretty hard for the original developer to support their product when their market share declines due to the discounted knock off, and their ability to spread their R&D investment out over a longer period of time with product sales is damaged.
We as buyers of theses pirated technologies are a part of the problem.
Just sayin...
I think this is part of the normal course of business with any product. As soon as it's released, all is present for anyone to look at and learn from. That's why there are various forms of intellectual property protection, and how to utilized that for any product is an important element in any business strategy.
The hazard with any product offering is that you can never protect or hide all of the secret sauce that makes it an attractive product. The more you can protect the better, but sooner or later others will come along and compete with you. As consumers we generally celebrate that competition.
So I don't feel too badly for Webasto or Espar or whoever offers similar products. You need to keep up or someone will always eat your lunch. Why is this any different? If the Chinese product is violating any patents or such, Webasto and Espar should be seeking injunctions baring those products from sale in countries supporting suck laws. Is there any indication that such violations have occurred, or is the tech self evident enough that anyone else could build a similar product? Oil burners are not rocket science, so I doubt there is much patent protection at play.
The other side of this is a great illustration of the economics at play. The Chinese product shows that the manufactured cost for such a product is less than $100. If there are two products available, one for $100 and one fro $1000, guess which will sell? Despite all the talk about US built products, people still buy 90% based on price. So one of a few things happens:
1) Webasto sells product for $1000, because their manufacturing cost demands they sell for that price. This causes them to go out of business because people will buy the $100 product.
2) Webasto reduces their manufacturing cost and makes more margin selling for $1000 for as long as they can, but over time drops price to maintain market share. They make higher profits short term, and get rewarded by the stock market and management makes a lot of $$.
It's pretty clear which path any company will follow. And the result is that companies are forced to seek lowest manufactured cost (or close to it), or they will go out of business. The only way to survive higher cost of goods is if you have a superior offering in some other way that will command a higher price. But maintaining that differentiation is difficult because others will do it too over time.
So I think the only thing Webasto and Espar are victims of is basic economics and product dynamics.
