I have heard people say they use knock-off tips because of genuine tips being expensive.
How much do they cost in other countries?
For me, a single genuine Hakko tip here in Bulgaria costs about 11BGN which using today’s exchange rate is $6.75. That doesn’t seem expensive, even if I don’t consider the fact that I don’t know of a local place to buy knock off tips so I’d have to buy from Amazon and pay probably $20 for shipping and customs and at the end, 5 or 6 knock off tips will probably only cost me $3-5 less.