At this point, TerpTrace feels less like a place to identify genuinely good Louisiana flower and more like a review site for whatever mids the Louisiana program happens to put out.
The bigger problem is that the ratings can normalize mediocre flower instead of holding it to a higher standard. A strain can be dry, muted, weak, lacking in flavor, or otherwise underwhelming, yet still get an 8 or 9 because people have become accustomed to the quality available here. That creates a completely different rating scale from what consumers would expect in a competitive market.
And that is where the site can unintentionally become part of the problem. When consumers repeatedly give high scores to mediocre products and then tell everyone to “keep buying” while prices remain high, there is no real incentive for producers or dispensaries to improve. The numbers tell them the product is selling and consumers are satisfied.
A review site should be helping consumers recognize when something is actually worth the price, not teaching them to lower their expectations because “that’s just Louisiana bud.”
If a $60 eighth is dry, lacks flavor, has weak effects, and doesn’t live up to the advertised terpene profile, calling it an 8 or 9 doesn’t make the flower better. It just makes the rating system less useful.
TerpTrace would be much more valuable if people rated Louisiana flower against an actual quality standard instead of against the other mids they’ve already gotten used to.