Dive into anything

I recently bought an interesting new micro tomato-variety called "Purpleboy F1" (supposedly the first purple micro tomato), and while it was pretty expensive (9 dollars for 5 seeds), I don't particularly mind paying a bit extra for interesting varities.

I think I've never really given any thought to what "F1" means before this, because it shows up in a lot of commercially available seeds, at a variety of price-points.

But because this variety was both expensive and hard to get (first seed I've ever "pre-bought" from a supplier), it made me look up what the term actually means, and it's a bit of a bummer to learn, given that most of my other plants are varities that you can comfortably save seeds from.

I am aware of how F1 tomato-varities are made and sold, and also that the particular variety I've bought might behave completely different from any other "second-generation" seed saving of a F1 hybrid.

But I think my question is whether or not it's fundamentally a waste of time to save F1 tomato seeds, in the hope that they'll perform roughly similiar to the original seeds.

Tomatoes take a lot of time to grow from seed, so it's an investment of time that might not outweigh just eating the cost of accepting the reality of "proprietary seeds" (regardless of how you feel about it).