I will say this about cheap treestands...
I've owned about 25 cheap treestands over the years and still have about 15 of them. Some I regret buying, others I got my monies worth from. At the end of the day, I wish that I had saved some of that "throw away" money and went with better stands/sticks. Over the past decade, I have spent a good bit of money on items that proved to not be worth their weight. Archery is truly one of the things where "you get what you pay for" rings true across the board. If I had it to do all over again, I'd save the $50 I spent on a cheap stand and wait until I could afford something that offered true value...