It's strange, see on the one hand, larger businesses have the wherewithal to make things right when major fuck-ups happen. They can more easily achieve proper QC (multiple QC checks by different people on the same item are a must with consumer electronics!) The smaller vendors we deal with these days often fuck up unforgivably and most are as bad as each other, I routinely overlook practices from vape vendors overseas that would be illegal in my country.
Still, this stuff is better resolved with regulations than by bringing in big business (and let us remember that just because they have the means to fix large fuck-ups, does not mean they won't do everything in their power to avoid making things right if they think they can get away with it!).
I also love buying from companies that are such that I can get to know their staff on a first name basis, get information given to me straight, not get fucked on shipping costs (seriously, some very well loved vendors here absolutely sodomize us sideways on shipping, without naming names!), get timely and ethical warranty service. Except for the shipping part, most big businesses don't provide this so well IME. Especially warranty.
That pods idea is naked profiteering. It is obviously about finding a proprietary way to make cannabis more profitable without adding any value to the actual product. The above parallel to printer ink is spot on, and expect to see the same thousands of percent mark-up from wholesale to retail on weed pods too.
EDIT: You are not going to get consistent dosages with pre-packed herb pods. Flowers, even the best grown ones, under glass, according to GW Pharma's best practices for cultivating chemovars are organic material. As such, any given sample of the same amount of said ground plant material will vary accordingly. You will not get consistency in content from sample to sample off the same plant without extracting, refining and isolating (more than we even do with the most refined cannabis extracts people enjoy around these parts including myself!) actives! This cannot be accurately touted as a benefit of pods, given that in the volume being produced, there will be a huge degree of variation between any two given pods of the 'same' strain/grow/even plant! Different terpenes appear in different concentrations in different parts of the same plant. Moreover, some parts of plant develop and thrive more than others, as with all plants. All of these kinds of factors will ensure that we are unlikely to get consistent, verifiable and uniform ingredients/content of any two given such pods of ground cannabis, let alone across all pods!
I want to see big business put those big bucks to good use. Develop new extraction methods, new kinds of extracts, new ways of vaping! This is 2015, I personally know of ways that we could vaporize essential oils without even using HEAT (NO I WILL NOT OUTLINE THESE HERE)!
Why are we still using the equivalent of sucking on a soldering iron with herb suspended somewhere above it in the airpath in various form-factors? This is the burning question in my mind (pun absolutely intended)!
Basically, if they're here to innovate, bring it on!
Otherwise, if big business don't bring something new to the table, then pardon my French, but they can fuck off!
