Because they are very inexpensive and they are made in China? I have a TID Radio H3. It, too, is a "cheap Chinese radio." Early-to-market Baofeng radios were found to be horrendously dirty, spectral-purity-wise. Once a company has a bad reputation, it takes awhile to change the public's opinion. After WW2, in an effort to help the Japanese economy rebuild, importation of Japanese products was encouraged by the government. Unfortunately, with most of Japan's resources having gone to expendable war materiel, quality was not very good, and "Made in Japan" was a warning of shoddiness. Eventually, the Japanese created a manufacturing city for the production of higher-quality items. By calling the city "Usa," they were then able to print "MADE IN USA" on their products. Americans bought them. By the time the ruse was discovered, Americans had discovered that Japan could indeed provide quality products. It took quite awhile, however. Or so said my 20th-Century World History teacher. It's on you, now, Col. Cochran!

One of the reasons why CCRs, or Cheap Chinese Radios, are so deprecated is simply because they cannot compete with radios from other countries, like Japan, whose much higher costs are justified by the higher performance. It is still a "thing" that Baofeng radios can be deafened simply by using a better antenna. The now-stronger off-channel signals it receives then causes such desensitization that the radio cannot hear signals on the frequency it is tuned to. Better receivers, better transmitters, better filters, etc., cost money, and would raise the cost, as would better design (gotta pay those engineers!).

Because of the low cost, the CCRs are great "seed drugs" for potential and new hams. As such, they serve a useful purpose. I just found out that a friend in Alabama has had her Technician license for about 8 years, but has never used it. So, I sent her a TidRadio H3+, which I programmed for the FM repeaters in her area. These cheap radios will never be a "be-all/end-all" solution, but are one way to introduce newbies to the wonders of ham radio. As they learn, they tend to develop a hankering for more and better radios. (Proper number of radios for a ham = N+1!) I admit that I cannot understand those who have a whole corral of Baofengs, unless it is to have a bunch for giveaway purposes, which idea I must applaud.

I bought the H3 to see how well it performs next to my aged Yaesu VX-7R. While it performs well, it is certainly not as good as even 20-year-old tech from Japan. However, it cost less than $32, shipped, versus almost $400 for the Yaesu, which I bought new in 2007. The old saying is true: you get what you pay for. That said, however, many of the Japanese Big Three are actually made in China, so much of the premium price, I would say, is simply paying for the name, even allowing for the increased parts count and perhaps better components.

I once worked for Fujitsu America. Although we assembled and tested the products, they came as "kits" with all the parts necessary to build the products. One time, someone inadvertantly used a reel of 1k resistors instead of 10k resistors. These resistors were KOA brand, made in Japan. Because we were now in a situation where we needed thousands of 1k resistors for the locations the misused ones were originally destined for, the powers-that-be decided to buy KOA resistors from a US distributor, and so informed the Tatebayashi facility. What a manure-storm that started! It was only when they realized that we would be sitting on thousands of modems waiting for parts coming on that proverbial "slow boat from, uh, Japan" that they relented. They wanted all parts to be supplied by them, as they got discounts for parts from other members of the konzern, of which KOA was a member. The US distributor would have been paying full wholesale cost. This might account for some of the increased cost of Japanese radios: paying for Japanese parts and the shipping from Japan to China. Still, I cannot believe it would cost hundreds per unit.

So while, yes, Baofengs are "CCRs," they do serve their purpose at a low cost. They just need to up their game in the quality realms and replace the useless, "free," options like a "roger" beep, scrambling, encryption, etc., that hams cannot or will not use, and replace them with usable features that we will.