I guess they have their use, but I dislike green extension cords. my daughter has a few of them, and she tends to leave them laying in the grass when I go over to mow her yard.
Not good for visibility, but great for blending. We use them for Christmas and Halloween so that you don't see a ton of cords about. I have to move them or weed eat around them if it rains much during those months.
You’re right. This is just evidence of a modern well-run supply chain.
Amazon does this better than anyone, and you’ll commonly find products available in different colors with each having a slightly different price. These prices change dynamically based on trends like historic and forecasted demand, current on hand quantities, and many other factors.
Edit to add: Some more advanced brick and mortar stores (see B&H Photo in NYC) use electronic price displays in the shelving to allow them to change prices more dynamically and frequently without having to incur the labor costs of restickering and retagging product.
It actually might be related to the cost of the color of the jacketing itself. The different dyes used in plastic production have varying costs, in lots of cases.
Fun fact, this is part of the reason so many cars are silver, white, or black now. A lot of base models of cars are only available in those three colors, along with maybe red. To get a different color, you have to get an upgraded package... and there's your $1k price jump.
Even more interesting the orange is heavy duty 12awg (normally rated for 20A) where as the green is medium duty 14awg (normally rated 15A) so it is possible to melt the green cord plugging it into a garage, kitchen, or similar receptacle that has a breakered supply of 20A. Buy the orange
If the die costs $0.03 per km of cable they have to mark it up at the factory, which means the disty needs to mark it up, so the retailer has to mark it up.