Food items like live crickets are usually fed to animals like lizards (probably most common example), frogs and other amphibians, fish, birds, predatory invertebrates (like spiders and scorpions), etc.

In the case of pinhead crickets, those are usually purchased (in large quantities) by people breeding insect eating species since the young are too small for anything larger than the youngest and tiniest food items or for people with a large collection of animals like poison dart frogs that need very small, fairly fragile food items.

As for the debate of local pick-up versus online orders, there are pros and cons to each, and different people have different situations and needs. At the end of the day, in my part of the world, pretty much all the places I'd go to pick up crickets locally are just getting them shipped in from large scale cricket breeders anyway, so if you need a bulk order of 1000+, it's likely cheaper and easier just to order them online and have them shipped. Also important to note, these aren't just random crickets someone collected in their back yard, these are a specific cultivated species that's been grown in relatively sanitary conditions so that they aren't carrying harmful parasites and disease or covered in dangerous pesticides and chemicals.

[–] somethingsomethingidk@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

We did it at a wildlife rehab center I worked at. If we bought local we would clean out the local bug supply in a couple days. Which happened a couple times when we couldn't get them online or a package got lost.

Not that I think that's what this is. The packaging could be better, but also you order a box of crickets you get a box of crickets....