What's your take on acoustic basses?

Hey, I would like to know what you guys think about acoustic basses, I saw one I really liked, like purely for the looks and so I went to a luthier (I think that's how you say it) and he told me acoustic basses are mostly crap except for a few, and that they're not even loud enough to compete with other acoustic instruments when unplugged.

Kind of pop my hype, but like is it a shared opinion in the bass community? After all acoustic basses are more expensive for some reason, might it be because they don't sell a lot so they want to make as much profit from them as possible ?