Absolutely incorrect. Do not believe this.
A digital signal is essentially a square wave output. As you increase distance, use materials with detrimental attenuation, decrease the amount of materials used, place these materials in proximity with other electric field (this is a stretch but is possible) you will lose signal strength. The "squares" start to "round off" is the best way I can put it.
If you've ever watched an HD signal with a device that had a long cable, and saw sparkles on the screen, then you'll know what I'm talking about. After long enough distances or poor enough materials, the 1s and 0s will get confused by the hardware in your display.
That 10 dollar "steal" you got might be great if its 1 foot long, but the signal will get worse. I do this for a living with fiber optic control cables in power plants. They are not all equal.
That being said, if I had to pay the full $109 for the monster cable, I would not have gotten it. But for 9 bucks why not? It also has a life time warranty.
HDMI is essentially a cat5 cable with more shielding. There are 8 cables inside in a 4 twisted pair configuration. 3 of the pairs mimic exactly component video (the blue, red, and green cables.) Component video could do HD if you got the hardware. The remaining pair is basically a digital clock (square waves) with some other misc info. The longer, and crappier, you make this cable the more the digital signal gets degraded.
I'm sure nobody actually read this whole thing.
Adam