I get the point about vendor risk, but let’s be honest for a second. The average customer is not sitting there worrying about a vendor’s seizures, raws, or logistics. That’s the vendor’s path and the vendor’s risk. Unless someone is personally close with a source, most buyers simply do not care. They look at quality, consistency, and price. That’s it.
What surprises me more is how hard you’re pushing the “prices must go up” narrative, as if this is some moral obligation. When you actually look at the market, current pricing is already pretty well established. Among the bigger names on this forum, Stan and Opti are around $40 for test, and Primal, OEP, Arail, Defiant, and Neo are all clustered in the same general range. These guys run clean oil, good equipment, proper stoppers, and have been around long enough to earn trust.
No one is asking sp5der to sell $20 vials. But saying $50 per vial is the new normal purely because of “risk” and because it’s “how it should be done” feels like a stretch. Especially when the end product and experience are comparable.
From the outside, it honestly starts to feel less like market analysis and more like a small group trying to steer the narrative toward higher prices. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how it comes across. In the end, vendors can price however they want, and customers will do what they always do. Vote with their wallets.