I could sort of understand it if the driver refused to work and popped up some dialog that said "You're using a counterfeit FTDI device, here's how to get an of

I could sort of understand it if the driver refused to work and popped up some dialog that said "You're using a counterfeit FTDI device, here's how to get an official device. Sorry this driver is not compatible with unofficial devices." However if it just silently bricks the chip then consumers will have no idea what's wrong. They'll think their Arduino clone is broken or they can't talk to their Raspberry Pi for some reason. I doubt they'll make the connection that the FTDI chip in their device is a clone and understand what to do to fix it.