[kragen]

you have me confused with someone else; i haven't compared any prices in this thread

i agree that there's a counterfeit problem, and it's worse in china, but that's irrelevant to my argument

i don't think it makes sense to say that i'm trying to make china look better. you're painting a pants-on-head absurd picture of china's role in electronics manufacturing, apparently taken from some kind of incredible propaganda. i'm just giving you the basic facts that everyone agrees on but you don't know yet

[dragontamer]

The issue here is ATmega328 pricing vs AVR DD pricing. Which is the crux of the discussion.

The pricing estimates discussed earlier have to be factored against the well known, widespread counterfeits. Especially because ATMega328 is a well known counterfeited chip, and the Chinese market well known for being full of not only counterfeits in general, but even counterfeits of this specific chip under discussion.

You cannot compare chip prices like the poster did earlier. And all this Chinese vs whatever discussion you're trying to distract me with aside doesn't change the core fact.

[kragen]

i think the pricing is a mostly irrelevant detail, actually, which is why i didn't mention it. what's relevant is availability

you're right that availability of counterfeits isn't real availability, but i think you're vastly exaggerating the seriousness of that problem. a more likely reason for chinese distributors lowering their prices for the atmega328 is that it's not appealing for new designs, so they need to offload their leftover inventory