to be honest i dont understand the hostility towards doc gt. if i were to go in to details about my dealings with him and his product im sure some people here would just accuse me of spamming being a shill or a relative . he is good to me. nuff said
Analyzing this kind of thing is what I do for a living.
It's pretty simple, he sells seeds at a very high price (don't bother making a value claim, fact is you can get very decent seeds for 5 bucks and he sells some of them at 67 bucks a seed) and makes big claims about them. At that price and with those claims, a lot of people expect perfection. They expect something extraordinary. Something that surpasses everything they are used to. Value added products have that downside. People get a lot angrier when things go wrong. Nobody will cry for crashing a 92 Honda civic. But you will cry for a dent on the door of your new Ferrari.
It's like that whole G13 fiasco. The name itself was asking for trouble. That name refers to a fictional utopian strain of weed developed by government scientists. When people hear G13, they expect a crazy plant. They expect a high so awesome that it's unlike anything else, they expect a movie high, feeling like they're flying away on a rainbow. They expect weed that was developed by government scientists. Even worse: they expect it to be the VERY BEST strain out of a bunch of "Super strains" developed by government scientists that was secretly smuggled out and kept for decades by a group of obscure weed experts. They've been hearing that name in popular culture since the 70's. That's a crazy hype to live with.
What they get is a high yielding top shelf plant. It's A+ stuff, and lots of it. I'm pretty sure it offers the best quality to yield ratio out there. But it's not some fantastical utopian weed that fulfills imaginary expectations created by outrageous claims in popular culture. Had he simply called the strain something like "Greenthumb's Fat plant", there would have been no drama. Just, "wow, that's a big plant". Nobody would've had false expectations about it.
The price of the G13 is also way too high. At 400% the cost of an average seed, you expect 400% in results. That won't happen. That price creates an expectation that simply won't be fulfilled for a lot of people.
I'm about to buy a pack. But that's because it's an ideal strain for me and I have no problem with spending more money to get what I want: one big ass plant that won't give me panic attacks if I smoke a lot of it. I want to make a 4x4 SCROG with just one giant bitch in one giant pot so I won't have to crawl on my knees to water four different plants in my tent. I want to veg it a long time so it'll make much bigger colas than if I had grown four small plants in the same space. With the G13, I can realistically grow a single plant and make enough for a year with this method (I only grow for myself). And I buy from Dr Greenthumb because he's the only seller I fully trust, and also the only one whose seeds actually made it to my house. That's where my added value lies. I'd much rather spend 200 bucks for three seeds that I get than to spend 100 bucks for ten seeds I'll never even see. I tried 5 sellers, 1 actually got me seeds. I don't even care what the others offer anymore. I'm sold. If it's not offered by Dr GT, it is a strain I can not grow.
What he is amazingly good at, marketing-wise, is creating customer fidelity by offering a consistent service. You always know exactly what to expect when dealing with this guy. You purchase experience will always be the same. He's very reliable and everything is clear. That's very rare in any industry.
But, to come back to Endless Sky, that guy that was complaining a lot (SSHZ) said it was killer weed. He said it knocked him on his ass and that it was super potent. He got pretty decent yields too. But he had a bit of problems at first and the buds were a bit fluffy (who the hell even cares? I never understood that complaint. Are you chewing it or something?). If he had paid 10$ a seed, he wouldn't have even made a complaint. Fact is he got great weed that yielded as advertised. But he was expecting added value. Notice how he keeps referring to it as not being "special" anymore may times in the thread. Nobody said it was special. It's just a good yielding Indica that finishes a little quicker than usual and that's pretty strong and that tastes good. But he expects special because it cost more.
There's no possible way to avoid the complaining. It's the product. The only similar industry I can think of is restaurants. Taste is subjective. A high is subjective. Each plant grown by each grower is different. He will always have a group of unsatisfied customers.
Bring a poor guy to a really fancy and expensive restaurant. He'll eat the best meal of his life and he will be furious that it cost him so much and never return. He'll even convince himself it wasn't that nice.
It's also why the actual best strains aren't popular. You want ridiculously good weed? Neville's Haze. Impossible to grow, 100-110 days of flowering, low yield. Best weed ever, like a light dose of acid, extremely euphoric and trippy. Nobody grows it.
The average consumer wants cheap, fast and easy. "Good" is at the end of the list.
