On the topic of growing vs buying plants, well of course buying plants is going to be cheaper. There are economies of scale at the very least. You're probably not going to be growing your own plants because it's cheaper to do so.
On the topic of hydroponics; limited space is one factor. Hydroponics can be bent to fit your space in a way that soil based often can't. Once you start trying to make like vertical planters or something you're probably spending as much money on frames or shelves as you would on a hydroponics setup and you've still got to haul water to your shelf of planters and water them all individually.
For hydroponics I just have a bucket on the floor that I can fill with water, and it will automatically water the plants that are well above my head. There's just a lot less physical labor involved in filling up a bucked once a month than in trying to water a bunch of individual plants.
You've got to remember that for the most part these are happening indoors, in people's living spaces. If those same people had a large yard they might be using raised beds and irrigation. It also frankly take a lot less thinking, I don't have to worry about pest control or if the sun dried out the soil earlier than I expected so I need to water more, or pretty much anything related to climate.
Personally I have one of those 3D printed hydroponics towers, an automatically irrigated soil planter, and regular house plants that I have to water manually. Of the three the ones I have to water manually tend to have the most issues, issues with root rot or under-watering, issues with nutrient unavailability (I've gotten better at recognizing when they need some artificial fertilizer but it is a skill), etc.
The best is probably the automatically irrigated soil planter box.
On the topic of hydroponics; limited space is one factor. Hydroponics can be bent to fit your space in a way that soil based often can't. Once you start trying to make like vertical planters or something you're probably spending as much money on frames or shelves as you would on a hydroponics setup and you've still got to haul water to your shelf of planters and water them all individually.
For hydroponics I just have a bucket on the floor that I can fill with water, and it will automatically water the plants that are well above my head. There's just a lot less physical labor involved in filling up a bucked once a month than in trying to water a bunch of individual plants.
You've got to remember that for the most part these are happening indoors, in people's living spaces. If those same people had a large yard they might be using raised beds and irrigation. It also frankly take a lot less thinking, I don't have to worry about pest control or if the sun dried out the soil earlier than I expected so I need to water more, or pretty much anything related to climate.
Personally I have one of those 3D printed hydroponics towers, an automatically irrigated soil planter, and regular house plants that I have to water manually. Of the three the ones I have to water manually tend to have the most issues, issues with root rot or under-watering, issues with nutrient unavailability (I've gotten better at recognizing when they need some artificial fertilizer but it is a skill), etc.
The best is probably the automatically irrigated soil planter box.