They've always been good enough for double digit less money. Always. Anyone thinking "Chinese models fake models built using dirty distillation scam" don't know what they're talking about.
Distillation is just forcing the model to use an exam prep workbook for training instead of generic publicly available textbooks. The models themselves has to be smart enough for that to work. It's the exact same thing as Asian tiger mom double schoolwork strategy, to paint a picture.
To carry on this analogy - do test prep workbooks make you meaningfully more competent in general, or is it benchmaxing? (Versus studying textbooks for a similar time, of course.)
Their best models are getting more and more expensive, and still aren't SOTA.
It's almost like there's an actual cost to developing these models, and the Chinese don't have magic dirt that allows them to do it at a fraction of the cost.