This is a really good point. It's likely not just the case of "you might as well make it "worthwhile"" - economics plays a big part too. Once transportation and

This is a really good point. It's likely not just the case of "you might as well make it "worthwhile"" - economics plays a big part too. Once transportation and handling (and smuggling) costs make up the majority of the price of a product, the only products that are worth supplying at those of the (perceived) highest quality. A classic example is the observation that the average orange sold in New York City is of significantly higher quality that the average orange sold in Florida. On the face of it, this sounds silly - NYC doesn't grow oranges and Florida has lots of excellent orange trees, yet what happens is that given the high costs to ship fresh fruit, it makes sense (from a marginal cost perspective) to send mostly above-average fruit to NYC because the people in NYC who are already paying a much higher amount than the people in Florida for the same orange likely won't care very much about an extra five or ten cents to get the better orange while the people in Florida could see the extra five or ten cents as a 100% increase in the price of a good.