Generic seeds

I'm not sure that "generic" is the right word to use here but..........who cares? 
My question to the panel is............ why do we need lots of different varieties of the same type of vegetable (like carrots or leeks) when, basically, they all taste the same.
If you bought one packet/type of carrots, or leeks, or spring onions, or parsnips  would that be sufficient for your needs. 
In the good old days, before the introduction of F1 seeds, gardeners would have had far less choice of varieties and probably grew the same ones every year, especially if they could save the seeds from one year to the next. 
Are we being led astray by the seed suppliers, tempted to stray from the beaten track, with adverts promising bigger, better, tastier, earlier produce when in fact they are little better than the old varieties?
Over to the panel of experts..............

It's all in the marketing and not necessarily just applied to seeds. The producing/marketing bods spend their days thinking of ways to tweak a basic product to market it as 'new' to the unsuspecting public. Think of all the choice we have in the supermarkets and the tech shops. We're convinced by the makers that last years product A is passè and to be truly fashionable we have to have product A mk2. Seeds are no different. Although having said that, many seeds that are our favourites today weren't available say 10 years ago, especially tomatoes in my case.

I take your point, JJB, but I'm not one for buying a new "***" every time a new model goes on sale. Far too mean for that!
Every season, seed prices go up/ seed packet contents go down or varieties disappear from the shelves while others with different names take their place. Are they really different or are they just being re-badged to tempt us to buy. Is all the hype to be believed - especially when it comes from the catalogues of certain retailers.
I really do wonder how much better most of them are, compared to the seeds that the old gardeners grew.

I think people get bored after a while and feel they must try a 'New' cultivar, I know I do!   New, imrproed always sells, which make you wonder how we ever managed in the past?

"New improved" sells because we're brainwashed into thinking that growing these will mean we can do better this year than we did last year.
If I didn't have so many seeds already, I'd consider buying a selection of old varieties, listed in one of the pre-F1 gardening books and growing them.
I may have a plan for my seed stash - but that's another discussion.

I think possibly there are many different varieties of things that taste the same for geographical / climate reasons. I know when I did my Brussel sprout growing experiment of 14 varieties. There was a definite difference in growth & productivity. But absolutely no difference in flavour/ texture. So I’m guessing some varieties are not meant to grow in the frozen north.
As for carrots yeah they taste the same. But you can still get different shapes & colours. Which makes the growing & eating fun ( for me, it does)
I also think there’s enough variety without even having to grow any F1 seeds. I’ll not lie I have grown a lot of F1s in the past. Especially when I started out. I didn’t actually know what it meant. But know I’m very into saving my own seeds (that is with thanks to people on this forum). I’d like to avoid F1s. I even stopped growing sungold tomatoes because of it! (I really liked them).
Having said all that. I am also a massive cynic and think like you, that most of it is complete BS made up by the seed companies to get more sales.

I take your point, JJB, but I'm not one for buying a new "***" every time a new model goes on sale. Far too mean for that!
Every season, seed prices go up/ seed packet contents go down or varieties disappear from the shelves while others with different names take their place. Are they really different or are they just being re-badged to tempt us to buy. Is all the hype to be believed - especially when it comes from the catalogues of certain retailers.
I really do wonder how much better most of them are, compared to the seeds that the old gardeners grew.

I hear you and totally agree, we're not mean, just careful and dont spent unnecessarily. You bought a hot bin, I havent bit that bullet yet, far too expensive.  These days I seldom even read the seed catalogues. I'm so set in my ways that I grow mostly the same as I grew last year and the year before that.  Your seed swap has been extremely helpful in introducing me to new varieties of both veg and flowers,  none of which I would have bought.  Personal recommendation on here goes a long way to convincing me to buy something new in the seed line, as do special end of season offers.  Don't you think sometimes the old varieties continue because they're tried and tested.
I must admit, though, to being a sucker for anything new in the supermarkets. 

I take it you haven't got an iPhone 14  ..............me neither.

I think a lot of it is down to “Marketing”.
Even on my little plant and flower stall, a pretty photo really helps to sell a plant.
Also, the name seems to help too. Quite a few customers bought “Dancing with Smurfs” tomato plants just because they liked the name.
(As for Big Blue Willy !!!!!)

Good point about the names, FEW. Tomatoes seem to have some of the most inventive names that tell you absolutely nothing about the end product. Maybe we should rename our saved seeds?

If I find a good variety I stick with it but I am always open to try something new (if it's cheap enough   ). I really like hybrids in some situations because they can have better vigour, yield, disease/pest resistance, bolt resistance, storage quality, uniformity of shape, earliness, cold/heat tolerance... Do they taste better? Probably not. And there are still many older varieties which perform very well, but we only have about 15 square metres of growing space so there's not much room for anything which underperforms. The seed sellers do often overexaggerate about new varieties, but that's pretty standard for any marketing blurb.

I started off buying everything open-pollinated from Real Seeds but have gradually introduced hybrids where I thought certain qualities were lacking. Looking at my seed spreadsheet, the hybrids are mostly sweetcorn (earliness), kohl rabi (don't go woody quickly), tomatoes (blight and other disease resistance), pak choi (bolt resistance), cabbage (cold tolerance), overwintering onions (mildew resistance, bolt resistance), cucumbers (all female flowers) and courgettes/squash/pumpkins (mildew resistance).

For me, tomatoes is one area where new varieties are exciting. Recent blight resistant varieties have really impressed me and I think they're going to keep getting better. If that allows more people to grow tomatoes outdoors then I don't mind the seed sellers making a bit of extra profit! I still wouldn't buy the seeds full price though   .