Smart consumers won't buy a $10 memory card on Ali because it's likely to be a destructive fake, but people will buy Internet-controlled electronics for their favorite nether regions of their bodies. Amazing. I guess that's part of the thrill.
It's more about a lack of available reputational signals. There's little brand awareness and few people are willing to review such intimate products. With electronics you can go by manufacturer if nothing else, intimate products often don't even have branding.
The internet of things doesn't have any of the stigma that this has; and I still wouldn't trust it to run lightbulb.
With something that attaches to your body 24/7, it sounds like you would want something on the order of medical grade assurances because, if something goes wrong, it has the potential to cause medical problems.
On top of this, people don't usually shop around much for the best product when it comes to intimate devices. A lot of it is even specifically marketed toward impulse buys.
And even some of the more reputable brands have a distinct hint of skeeziness to their branding. “Fun Factory” and “The Pleasure Chest” both sound super sketch, despite both being well respected companies with a good track record.
For as cheesy as 90's sci-fi was, Demolition Man was surprisingly prescient about little things like this. Physical coitus becomes a disgusting act akin to taking a shit, so it becomes a virtual shared experience that creates the feelings between two relative strangers without the various risks.
My only experience with Aliexpress was that I ordered $30 rubber feet replacements for my laptop, and they sent me a postcard with an advertisement for a fitness band written in German. When I complained with them, they told me to check the mailbox again and went silent. Got a refund eventually, but I can imagine fraud is a standard operating procedure there.
I think you lucked out or maybe didn't pay enough attention to the seller reputation. I probably ordered three dozen items from AE, ranging from cents to 600 euros, only thing not making it was a 10 dollar cable during the peak of the Spring covid wave in Europe, when logistics was seriously disrupted. Got my money back. I suspect it was lost, as tracking showed it strolling across the Far East back and forth.
And items were not up to spec sometimes, but also got my money back or the seller sent a replacement.
A friend I know tells me that they ordered a cheap knock off magic wand vibrator off eBay and after 3 months it never showed so they went to a sex shop and paid 200$ for the real deal. The fake one finally arrives couple weeks later but comparing them the fake one is just as strong but also has added features like different pulsations and more speed control. The 184$ difference will easily sway people to buy such products.
Even without electricity, there's plenty of horror stories about sex toys--particularly dildos--made with unsafe materials. Some materials can cause allergic reactions, others are carcinogenic.
Being aware of specific marketplace corruption isn't the same as being smart, and vice versa. And there's no reason to believe that the set of people buying these devices is the same as the set of people not buying memory cards.
