explain this to me

There is this constant fury over paper vs. physical silver on here. I don't see the distinction.

How can you compare small e.g. 1oz retail quantities to the 5000oz PHYSICALLY settled contract price? Is is not obvious that there should be a big premium for retail quantities? Particularly more so when prices are volatile?

I have a friend who deals bullion. According to him there's plenty of physical silver, just a temp shortage in the forms that the bullion bugs (mostly angry university aged men) want to buy to put under their mattresses. He also stuck up the price extra on small quantities <100oz because there was such a frenzy from retail customers to buy.

This is just what I see. Happy to be proven wrong.