[DiverDude]

This is classic.

A company (Buble-Magus in this case) develops a product and make it available for sale. After a while, customers are finding this to be a good thing at a damn good price. Word spreads throughout the community. At this point, product is being sold direct, on eBay, whatever it takes. Reputation is still below the radar though and most companies won't stock it.

Pretty soon, demand rises to a point where Bubble Magus realizes that they are losing out because their distribution isn't effective.

Around now, businesses are being asked for the product by the public and realize they can move units. Bubble-Magus is suddenly the hot, loose chick at the dance !

Now the problem becomes how to get rid of all the channels they had before the distributors came online.

Nothing new here; we're just watching the beginnings of a new company entering the market and we're seeing a few of the ugly truths of a market economy along the way. Most of us would be disgusted to learn how little it costs to make many of the products we buy every day but there's manufacturing costs, employee costs, insurance, distribution, warehousing, marketing, blah, blah, blah.

Of course, the guy at the LFS has to make some money on it too -and you should be happy that he does because if he didn't there wouldn't BE a LFS for you to run to when you needed it.

As a consumer, I always look for the best deal I can but I don't feel it's fair to berate businesses for working the system and trying to make a buck. Shop around; competition is good and makes sure that prices aren't inflated. In the end, speak with your wallet. If you can find something somewhere else for less and you're willing to wait , ship, etc. then go for it.