Why can I buy 3x8 brake shifters for flat bars for £14 but.............................

Original low end Shimano stuff rusts. Works fine but the corrosion resistance is crap, it doesn't mean its a knock off.

From bike shops here most commuters are kitted with original low end shimano kit but all steel bits, bolts rust to feck.. even the alu stuff oxidises in seconds.

The Asian market isn't flooded with knock offs of entry level shimano kit, there isn't any incentive.
Currently using a pair of 3x8 flat bar shifters and no idea if they are fakes or not, they were £14 new and work perfectly, like really slick, so good I really couldn't imagine that I would ever need anything better, how long they will last who knows but I am happy with them at the moment
 
Currently using a pair of 3x8 flat bar shifters and no idea if they are fakes or not, they were £14 new and work perfectly, like really slick, so good I really couldn't imagine that I would ever need anything better, how long they will last who knows but I am happy with them at the moment
Yeah the cheap shifters work fine. I really love the feeling of the Altus shifter
 
so here's the thing, you had some shifters on a bike, that bike was bought from a shop, this means the parts were genuine, they lasted well for several reasons, first is that shimano generally is well designed, the materials are generally good, and on the cheaper stuff it tends to be more solid as it's not trying to be lightweight, the most common issue i get with those style of shifters is they can seize up with lack of use, usually a load of lube sorts this out.

now you said you got those shifters for £14, this tells me the ones you have bought are likely fake, as has been suggested. the reason i think this is that the retail price is around £40, at £40 they come in nice shimano box, with both gear and brake cables, both inner and outer. even if these are knocked out cheap by a mail order company they wouldn't be doing them at 65% off as that is way below trade price, this screams fake parts, OR IF WE ARE BEING POSITIVE maybe all the cables were not supplied, or if you were lucky they are genuine but they have been pulled off a bike for some reason and then sold cheap.

if you bought them from Wish, Amazon, eBay or Ali baba or any other similar dodgy website then it is likely you have bought dodgy knock off shifters.

here is a similar set that i had come through my shop, 8 speed, brake lever snapped, gear assembly seized up, generally poor performance and i rarely see rusty stains leaking out of a genuine shifter, and there are small differences in the shape of barrel adjusters, lever blade shape etc. the fake set is the bottom set.
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also, you basically said in one of your posts that essentially your shifters and XTR did the same thing, well yes, but that suggests you don't value better quality components. that seems odd to me, i have a nice vehicle, i value that it's in good condition and quite a high spec, to go back to a more basic spec or older vehicle does not appeal.
UPDATE I think you may well have been correct here, whilst the cheapos worked perfectly and shifted very precisely, I transferred them to a different set of bars and on tightening they both snapped the clamps, I noticed that the old Shimano originals which I am now using (they are 3x7 not 3x8 but I can live without the biggest gear) have a steel clamp band lining the alloy clamp which is highly unlikely to ever fail wheras the cheapos have just a brittle alloy clamp band which is clearly not up to the job, it seems very unlikely that Shimano would have designed them like that so I must conclude they are fakes, lesson learned, I will pay the extra next time, even the originals are not too expensive so its false economy.
 
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