However the entire vape industry is so weird and shady.
I don't know - I've met a lot of helpful people. Vendors included. Now lawyers, and investment banking, and insurance == THOSE industries are weird and shady.
I don't like that the technology isn't advancing in the market
It's advancing like CRAZY. New device developments every week? A shift from sticks to big boxes, from 10 watts to 300, from cartomizers to squonkers...most people complain that they can't keep up.
turned into a tricky hobby you have to dedicate yourself to.
This is valid, but it will settle down, and there will be simple devices without a hobby element. Possibly the "pod" trend we're seeing (more rapid crazy development of new product).
Then again, I have a theory that ONE PART of what makes vaping a success in smoking cessation for MANY (not all) people IS the hobby element. We LIKE having new stuff to try, to figure out, to fiddle with - and in fact, keep doing so well beyond the point that we're happily not smoking...
It's not just replace the nic - it's finding something more SATISFYING, which includes an enjoyment of the gear/flavor experimentation. Again - for me, not saying that has to be true for everyone!
being swindled by greedy vape shops on extreme mark ups or order online and receive malfunctioning tech that gets mishandled in shipment?
Shops are in a hard place - they're just trying to survive, when in fact, they won't.
It's a bunch of people who opened a store with a bad business model.
Unless they have a succesful juice line (which will be impossible under new regs) they'll fail.
So yeah - buy online.
Who's mishandling shipments? I've had ONE issue out of hundreds of packages (and that wasn't the vendor - thing looked like USPS ran it over with a truck. Every day for the 3 months it was missing).
Then the damn juice makers are sketchy some have chemicals like formaldehyde and some are just bad recipes that are like flavored essential oils bleh!
Seriously?
Go back and read that article again. Maybe check who wrote it.
Formaldehyde happens when you take an Ego with a Clearomizer, and crank it up to max voltage, then suck the thing into an analyzer - continuing on past the "dry hit" because....well because "Bad Science". That's the test they ran when they documented Formaldehyde. Crazy high temp will do that.
No one is putting Formaldeyhde in the juice.
You must be looking in some weird places to find essential oils, too...
There's dozens of good juice makers...for now. Ask here and get a list if you want...
They shouldn't have been allowed to introduce this industry without getting these things approved and legitematly on the market.
Who would you put in charge of "allowing an industry"???
People invent stuff. We either buy it, and recommend it, and buy more - or not, in which case they stop making it.
That's a legitimate market.
An illegitimate market would be one where some misinformed agency "deemed" what we might or might not want.
This is why so many vapers build their own stuff and make their own juice
I don't think so.
I think vapers build their own stuff because it IS a young industry, with opportunity to keep inventing improvements. And as mentioned - tinkering and inventing is a good addition to the "hobby" side.
With juice, most people who make their own initially are motivated by the dramatic savings potential.
Juice is the one part of the industry where vendors have a really good markup - which is fine... There IS competition bringing it down, plus there's mix-your-own.
the people that started this "movement" were idiots
There are no "people who started this movement".
There were people who tried an e-cig to quit smoking. Then there were more of them.
Then they started chatting about how it was working for them - here, online.
WE are the people who started this...
LOL, cool! Me, too!
But really - you DON'T want a regulated industry -
Look at what the regulations are trying to yield even now:
No one in the business but a few huge (shady) corporations.
"Pods" with no refilling. Limited flavors (tobacco, menthol...maybe "berry," lol).
And, of course, an ongoing cost equivalent to or higher than cigarettes - THAT is the whole actual POINT of regulation, actually...to protect the nicotine revenue. It's got nothing to do with quality or safety or health.
