My experience is that quality wise that OEM or "real" products offer better quality, but the risk in general doesn't negate the extra expense of buying the real

My experience is that quality wise that OEM or "real" products offer better quality, but the risk in general doesn't negate the extra expense of buying the real thing; short-term this is, the half-life of non-real products is unpredictable and given the life spans of USB cords it's increasely worth the risk. Real issue is that complaint cables are over priced, and there no cheap way to confirm if a cord is non-complaint or for the matter if a device is complaint.