Quote Originally Posted by ctrlfreq View Post
I'm personally of the opinion that the market has never been as big as we hopefully assume it to be. While I'm sure the state of the economy is having some impact, I think the primary driver is the fact that the supply is already vastly outpacing the demand except in the arena of multiple-morph designer animals (which is what those who make their living on these animals concentrate on).
Keep in mind, though, that those multiple gene carrying animals are on the same road to the bottom as any other of their predecessors, basically a breeder-to-lesser-breeder type of buying and selling until the price is low enough that non-breeders will buy it. I don't think that this model is sustainable (at least for someone with a building mortgage or kids to put through college) and you can really only throw so many genes into an animal or create only so many combinations that are marketable enough for those kinds of high initial selling prices.

We're seeing the industry develop, and like any other, breeders need to adapt or go out of business. I believe that the long term sustainable product in the market will sell for under $1000 max, similar to a lot of high end birds, fish, or other niche markets. You should see what people pay for some species of saltwater fish and corals - I believe that there are plenty of snake people out there that are just as crazy about their animals as the reef tank guys are. If you think feeding a collection of ball pythons is a money pit - go set up a 75 gallon reef.

To me, the only people I really see complaining about this are the so called "hobbyist" breeders in their basements that think they could put X dollars in and pull XXX dollars out in a couple of years.