Plain old red is fine. Its the hot red which veers off toward magenta that
is the problem child, that particular dye is almost fluorescent, it gets
your attention in a sea of the more commonly use red dye for
electrical stuff.
I'm pretty sure there are various ways to get that color, so if one of
the dyes is problematic, that doesn't necessarily carry over to other
cables using the "same" color, especially if produced decades later.
The J.A.Pan Company first used it in their cb radios in the earlier 1970's
for the transmit button on the microphone and I spent the next 5 years
replacing them with Beldon coil cables, then switched jobs, moved 1000 miles
& never offered my services to another CB dealer, I was too busy keeping
a tv station on the air, spending the last 18+ years of my working life as
the CE at WDTV-5 in Weston/Clarksburg WV. My electronic history goes back
to about my 8th birthday when I built a crystal radio from parts. So I grew
up with vacuum tubes, quit school in 1948 and went to work fixing the then
brand new things still called tv's.
You may not have heard about it, but I've lived it.
There's lots that I haven't heard about, but often "the Internet" has.
In this case my searches turn up strangely empty.
And because its gaudy, and guarantees a replacement market in the
future for more of their product, the Chinese will keep using it.
Are you sure that's actually the case? I can't imagine that the
additional sales for replacing failing magenta sata cable would
represent anything more than tiny fraction the market.
And can you point to any kind of evidence/reports that
it affected sata cables?
[ Also, the fact that it's produced in China doesn't mean that the
decision to cut corners would be made by "the Chinese". ]