PDX Dopesmoker
Active member
Unfamiliar? No. I've been working in the CA market since 1978. I've seen everything in that time. And I mean everything.
I understand you say I'm opinionated but I've never seen any indoor that even matched the best outdoor never mind exceeded it in terms of authentic terpene profiles and quality of the effects. Artificial lights and technology allow for certain things but they can't beat nature when it comes the achieving the very highest degree of genetic expression. If you disagree you need to do more exploration and research.
To get on topic and return to pricing. I understand the market is where it is, but it doesn't make sense. Fundamental quality should drive price not "bills". Products with higher production costs aren't automatically awarded higher price. Generally such a product loses the competition and goes away.UNLESS, clever marketing can overcome the disadvantage and keep demand going.
I first saw indoor lbs enter the market about 1987 or so and mainly as a substitute. Prohibition kept supply of outdoor very limited and it was a response. Back then, no one preferred it except the grower. The prohibition created such high prices that it was worth paying the bills to produce. Indoor also made it possible to grow more or less anywhere. Made some sense then, but that was then. For many years, I would pose this question to buyers when discussing the merits, "what's the best thing about indoor?". People would come up with various answers but never the correct one, which was (and remains), "the money it made for the grower."
For the past nearly 20 years, supply has increased and prices dropped significantly and along came the opportunity to produce full season, full sun, totally organic outdoor in CA. And top outdoor growers with great genetics have been doing it. So why pay uncompetitive prices for a product that can't truly express the best genetics to the highest degree, making what it offers merely "skin deep"? There is simply no way, that indoor can offer double the value compared to the best grown and processed outdoor. To think so is disconnected from reality.
I have participated in all levels of the market and retailed to thousands of buyers over the past 40+ years. I can't begin to tell you how many times a buyer would check out the product and ask, "Is this indoor or outdoor". Or how many times a middleman was able to sell some outdoor as indoor because the person wanted it was willing to pay more but couldn't actually tell the difference.
That's a major reason this current market pricing doesn't make sense.
Just to get the thread back on track after the moderator took it into off-topic realm of metadiscussion, I'd like to point out that markets themselves are all disconnected from reality and nonsensical to a certain degree. Many people make their livings taking advantage of that. The legal status of marijauna itself is completely disconnected from reality, so even if the market were exactly sane, it'd still be way off base. Of course this isn't the place to be discussing marijauna descheduling, the WHO, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs & Harry Anslinger, this is the wholesale market price in California discussion thread, but adding that Cali is 100% bonkers to begin with is clearly relevant when trying to understand the bud to dollar ratio south of the border.