I think the myth is that China isn't capable of producing high quality stuff. We mostly see low quality stuff because a lot of people in the West place orders for those things from China to stock their shelves, but it's just a fraction of what China produces. Western retailers are really the ones who are being cheap by not placing orders for higher quality goods. That's how I have synthesized the information I've seen about the topic.

If you read the terms and conditions, there is no "winning" those discounts. Everyone gets them as long as they hit the button and meet the criteria. They state explicitly that the rolls/spins/etc are for illustrative purposes only.

The problem isn’t the quality, it’s the gambling/gatcha/social network aspects that are designed to make you “choose” to buy more than you want or need because it’s a “good deal”

I buy all sorts of stuff from aliexpress, taobao, whatever all the time and it’s decent shit but you gotta be aware of how they get you.

I've gotten a few hundred dollars worth of stuff from Temu without issue, no worse than any western stuff.

there was an interesting thread here in the past couple months about the gambling aspect of temu et al. I can't find the link. IIRC the OP was about baby boomer parents being extremely susceptible to scams and tricks the apps play. But then people were talking about how they had gotten sucked in. Maybe someone else can dig up the link.

Obviously if something is price at 0.01% of expected, the difference cannot be account for by poor quality. Assuming it's not somehow a trick to get you to spend more money in another way immediately, it's a loss leader because they think in the long run they'll get you.

I can't tell you the details, but I can tell you one way or another it's a trick.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen if you just find out? You lose $0.01?

I know that it’s a myth that Chinese products are shit quality

There's lots of shit-quality Chinese products mate

It's not that Chinese products are shit quality across the board, but with temu you get what you pay for. I've had items come already broken or break shortly after the first use. I wouldn't use it for stuff that's critical or that can damage something else if it doesn't work properly (like electrical stuff).

And since they're cheaply made, they're not easy to repair, either. So you're burdened with a broken thing you either have to throw away or work really hard to make work again.

As much as other similar platforms, though i can't say for the 100$ things for 0,01$. I had some 10$ things for 0,01$ though and what i recieved were real things as described.