You said "the parent post said they avoid counterfeits and knock-offs by shopping on Aliexpress" which I'm afraid is incorrect given that the post in question s

You said "the parent post said they avoid counterfeits and knock-offs by shopping on Aliexpress" which I'm afraid is incorrect given that the post in question said "Amazon [is] no longer my first source [for] generic gizmos, [...] I'll go Aliexpress, eBay, and Walmart first" (if I may rearrange for clarity without changing the meaning). "Generic gizmos" roughly equates to "counterfeits and knock-offs" in my book, and that commenter isn't trying to avoid them when shopping at AliExpress and formerly Amazon. That's separate from the situations where they do want to avoid knock-offs, listed separately from all of this.