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Comment by rfrank | Hacker News Reader

Why is this any better than just calling a delivery service that already exists? You get to maintain direct control over the strains you get that way as well. And you don't get any of the promotions from a physical dispensary.

Ex. Magnolia Wellness in Oakland does a $25 3.5g with a donation of $35 or more on Saturday, and 4.5g eighths on Sunday, both of which beat the price per gram of this service.

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We created Marvina for people who don't enjoy picking strains each month. Unless you are fairly knowledgable choosing from the hundreds of strains on the market can be overwhelming.

If you know exactly what strains you want then Marvina probably isn't for you.

It may be worth considering putting the Goldstar menu on your site so users know what options are available to them. Could even include Leafly reviews so people can have a bit more info on what they're getting each month.

You don't have to pick out a different strain every month (or however often you purchase). Once someone finds 2 or 3 that they like they just keep buying those. People are already faced with a huge number of choices for alcohol and numerous other consumable products, but have little difficulty identifying their favorites even if they're not not connoisseurs of any particular product.

I think there's also significant value to the supply chain if there's evidence that certain strains have a committed market over time. You get better informed decisions on what to deprecate/not grow in the future, and if you have a dedicated customer base for a particular strain, you've got data telling you exactly how much growing space to dedicate to that.

True, but I am not seeing the claimed consumer surplus. Data-driven decision-making is good up to a point, but it too easily becomes an excuse for chasing the lowest common denominator, because it mistakes popularity for quality. Budweiser is (I think) the most popular beer int e US, but anyone who likes beer knows it's not particularly good, it's just the least bad across multiple criteria.

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