>For that matter, Arduino seems to somehow have stayed profitable in spite of getting murdered from every angle by the clones.
The clones are fine for simple stuff. But they really cut every corner possible, so even the chip is counterfeit, which means it doesn't behave like a real Arduino does. Deep sleep will use 1000x as much current on some clones compared to a real Arduino, for example.
You really can't only use clones. You have to develop/test on real Arduino hardware, then deploy to clones. Because the clones aren't reliable in their behavior.
The clones are fine for simple stuff. But they really cut every corner possible, so even the chip is counterfeit, which means it doesn't behave like a real Arduino does. Deep sleep will use 1000x as much current on some clones compared to a real Arduino, for example.
You really can't only use clones. You have to develop/test on real Arduino hardware, then deploy to clones. Because the clones aren't reliable in their behavior.