It just seems like all the most popular recipes and YouTube videos were made around that time.
Imo.: Yes!
Since a few years many Retailers went / kicked out of Business!
I'm not sure what that has to do with DIY. We have much more available to us now than we did in 2016.
It most certainly did not. The DIY community is thriving for the most part. There are lots of new things coming out all the time. There are also some really great mixers putting out some really interesting and amazing stuff and there is no shortage of YouTubers still doing their thing. We've come a long way since 2016.
It's almost like saying TV peaked when there were 4 channels to watch. Of course it was much easier to get attention in 2016 with a two flavor banger, or look like you were first to do a profile because you posted it on the right forum. the people crafting recipes now actually have to be more creative and try harder to get a fraction of the attention for a single recipe. And to get recognized as a talented mixer now takes a whole other level of consistency and talent than it did then.
You could scoop up a handful of the top mixers now and their combined recipe list would dwarf the entire 2016 list of vapable recipes.
you know, i kinda joked in my response, but it is kinda true that i think DIY as a whole peaked around when I showed up. There were a few places you could go and just swim in discussion and bask in shared information. What hurt the scene more than anything was legislation, propaganda, and fear mongering. The fact remains that someone who is still smoking that has access to the internet can find this place, read a few pages and have access to a brand new lease on life free from the crushing weight of cigarette addiction, is fucking mind blowing. Thanks for the reminder of how great this place is and how indebted to it I am. As well as how important it is to preserve it for future stragglers seeking freedom.
I don't think so. Recipes have evolved along with devices. Just seems like there's many more people doing it now that there's a million recipes so you're not going to get a small amount of recipes that everyone loved. Chances are if you try a 2016 recipe in a modern device, it's not going to hold up as well as something more modern thats specifically for it. I feel like we have a broader range of devices making the right recipe a little harder to find.
If you count "most popular recipes" as "highest number of views and mixes" then sure, the older stuff is going to be what you're seeing as popular. The recipes from the "old days" of vaping (2010-2014) were designed for completely different devices, but once RTAs caught on people found what they liked and stuck with it. There's nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't mean anything has peaked.
The hobby may not be thriving as it once was, but there are committed pockets of resistance that continue to innovate. The Discord for this subreddit has at least ten talented mixers present that I can think of, and the Vapedia crew in Germany has been releasing popular stuff for the past couple years.
Also, there are hundreds of new flavors released in the last 3 years alone that have changed the game.
About YouTube... there are over 200 episodes of Noted, and god only knows how many episodes of Wayne's shows on YouTube... how long do you think people can continue to talk about the same boring Vanilla Swirl / Cap Vanilla Custard / TPA Strawberry Ripe mix?
From someone that had a few years off: Yes, and my theory:
The number of mixers is less. More and more countries are either protecting their Big Tobacco with laws (Auz) or taxing the hell out of it (Ger). I think it’s also in part to the cheaper disposable, portable vapes.
I vaped and DIY’d from 2015-2017, I’m getting back into it now. Looking around shops now (in Germany), the only thing different is that smaller vapes got better. Looking around, many of the top recipes still sit on their thrones.
From a US vendor's perspective, the growth in DIY slowed significantly in 2016 with the passing of the deeming regs. Prior to that, there were tons of people jumping into DIY hoping to develop and launch an e-liquid brand. Nevertheless, DIY still continued to grow and the availability and number of tools for DIY grew even faster.
I believe the peak came in 2019/2020 with the 1-2 punch of the EVALI scare followed by the PACT Act. Bear in mind I'm only speaking to my company which sells primarily in the US, but that is when we started seeing month over month declines in DIY sales despite other companies exiting the market.
I think vaping in general has taken quite a hit both globally and locally in most countries. DIY might be the only niche that gets more wide spread as regulation tightens though, and the objective level of mixing regardless of popularity has improved tremendously since a few years ago.
I think it's "growing pains" from all the changes we have gone through. We didn't used to have disposables, pod devices, and so on. Government got involved and greedy, lots happened. I still see new recipes on ATF every day, and I look forward to them. Seems like new mixers are giving DIY a shot. For sure, the flavor companies aren't bowing out-we have had so many new flavors this year alone that it's hard to keep up with it all! As long as we have places like this one we are gonna be ok. I'm certainly not ready to go back to vaping commercial juices. YUCK!!!
Commercial juices are often just good recipes by experienced mixers, and non-commercial juices are often just super sweet and some flavors to make it palatable. Useless dichotomy imo. I agree with all the rest though.
You have a good point. Not all commercial juice is bad, or loaded with sweetener, and not all DIY recipes are good and don't use sweetener. I shouldn't have inferred that. For me personally I've been happier being able to make juice my own way, and I've enjoyed many others recipes as well, but by far not all of them. When I see something new to me I will give it a read. If it's my kind of thing, I may try it. Before DIY there were juices that I enjoyed very much. My bad there, perpetuating the myth.
Well the more states that they flav banned the more started Diy, there's so many people doing it now the Algorithim at Eliquid recipies dot com from people mis-abbreviating flavors etc that it's become a mess from mislabeling flavors and not givin a sht 🙄
It did. 120mls are now less than 10USD. My time/convenience just pays the small premium
I never seen those prices in the US unless it was some sort of sale.
However I think more retailers have better prices, its more shops around and yes if I remembr correctly juice is much cheaper than it was when when everyone had the big sub ohm devices.
I DIY 2x over the years. Not sure why I am still a member since I don't make my own juice anymore. If Nicotine was more easily available, I might take it back up as a hobby. My last go around I wasnt even trying to make some insane flavor, I just needed the nic to vape.