Well, ficus (ficus elastica and others) are natural latex - their sap is one of the forms of latex that occurs naturally and used to be harvested, but these days latex is harvested from a different plant (hevea brasiliensis, the "rubber tree")

So it's not so much as "the latex ones are cheaper" as "the real leaves are already made of latex, so why artificially make one out of latex?"

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exasperaited 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Ficus produces natural latex. The entire plant or leaf isn't latex!

What is left from this process in the fake leaf is a mixture of latex sap and processed lignin, I think. It's certainly not only latex.

	▲	jaggederest 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right, but if you process it with baking soda it coagulates the latex into the shape of a leaf with some strengthening fiber in it, which is approximately the exact thing you'd do with molded fiber-reinforced latex