Imagine a picturesque Swiss kuhdorf (koo - dorf : small little town) somewhere in the Alps.
Close to our kuhdorf was a farmer named Peter. Peter is milking his cow, Bessy, and she gives out a grand 22 litres a day.
He uses 2 litres per day for himself and he sells off the remainder (20 litres) for the equivalent of R2 a litre at the local market. Peter is quite happy as he doesn't have to diversify in his product, sells it as is and is making a profit enough for him for a living.

Klaus moves into town. He has 2 cows, milks them and gets 50 litres worth each day.
He is lactose intolerant, so he sells off all 50 litres to the market. The market demand is only 30 litres, so to undercut Pete, he sells his milk for 20c a litre.

In the end, Klaus realizes that his costs to feed and milk the 2 cows are much more than the money he is making from the 2c per litre. Why 2c? Because Peter was forced to drop his price of milk to compete with Klaus' drop in price.
After a while, both realised that this milking business is no longer working for them.

So what has this to do with tarantulas?
Well, you can buy a B. Smithi for R50. Curlies are now disregarded as Pocie feed. Pocies that use to get R1800 for a sling are sold off for R80.
Why is that? Why are there so many Klauses trying to undercut the market so badly?

If you can see yourself as a Klaus, feeling very smart about undercutting the rest - imagine this further:
A guy wants to buy a tarantula. He has R60 and Peter is selling a Golden Knee for R60. Keen enterprising Klaus thinks, hey! Let's sell the chop a Golden Knee for R10! Golden Knees for R10! So, fair enough, the client buys the one Golden Knee from Klaus for R10.
The market could have had inter-breeder cash pool of R60 (for trading between breeders), but now only has R10. So, Klaus, you need to sell 6x more now (you, and the rest of the market) to get back to the R60 level. Trying to grow your market suddenly by 6 times is an immense task.

If you are the type of guy/girl that for instance thinks "lets sell an Avic avic for R90 just to undercut the rest" - please kindly consider this : castrate yourself.
In that way, you rid the rest of the world of the nuisance of you and your ideas propagating.

We as the tarantula society live in a tiny little kuhdorf with a tiny little available market. The question is : what happened to Peter and Klaus then? The end is not decided yet and can be one of two : both decided let's pool together and make the market price R2 again. He who sells more is he who bags more cash.
The alternative (as we are seeing with a lot of tarantula shops closing and people leaving the hobby) is that Bessy was shot for meat and Klaus moved to another town trying to sell something else there.

We all hear you... see my post too. It's not just undercutting, but over breeding.

www.tarantulas.co.za/forum/breeding/5999...who-want-to-breed-ts

Not just undercutting and over breeding, but also cross breeding due to ignorance. The Acanthoscurria mess, Smithi's with Annitha legs. Purpureas / Avic / Versis make-your-own-cool-aid anyone?

I do think the situation can still be remedied. Maybe hang and quartered. I'm open for suggestions...

This only becomes a problem when people enter the hobby to make money. People must undercut, tarantulas must become cheap and hard to make money off so we can actually get some people in the hobby that aren't in it to make money. The hobby is not about making money, its about having awesome pets, to make a little bit of cash along the way is fine, but it should be a big problem because that shouldn't be the reason that you're in the hobby.

Couldn't agree more T-rad !
after all it cost almost nothing to breed unless you are buying the male

I think part of the problem is the size of the "crop" so to speak.

People don't realize the work involved in looking after 100+ slings. A couple of weeks of doing that and people are trying to give their stock away.

The fact is tho people, there is no inherent value in a spider regardless of what it is. The very act of selling the young makes sure the price will drop since its price is directly determined by its availability. The more common a spider becomes the cheaper it gets, and this is a good thing for the hobby in my opinion.