I'm not gonna say there aren't any nice third party apple watch bands because they're probably are. I just have never found one and so the ones i have tried i've all been really disappointing. So look if you can save some money and do that then great but if you're gonna get something that. You just kind of think is okay and isn't that nice and you're wearing every single day. Yeah this is inherent to like you know stretchy rubber or cloth both of which wear out substantially faster than say non stretchy Rubber or metal like though.