If your looking to get in on the ground floor and make ridiculous profit with minimal effort then you've already missed the boat. Read about the tulip craze or how about baseball cards. People still buy both but as hobbiest way.
I was involved in the sports card industry at a high level starting from the late 70's to the 90's. had a good run. Once people saw profit the greedy inflated prices sky high and then it crashed and never returned.
There will always be a demand for ball pythons. They are great pets.
I think we're past the goldrush days. Right now I see people selling off collections. Hopefully those are the people who put money before animals.
Thats means there is a glut of average to poor quality animals. This will clear up and stabilize.
If pastels for example are almost as cheap as normals people will stop producing them. After 3 years of this maybe the production will lag the demand.
A down economy tends to push people into hobby investment schemes. The crash of the silver market and the recession of the early 80's helped baseball cards not hurt it. You didn't have to feed cards though.
It all depends on you. Are you a people person? Sales, marketing? These are a must! You can't hide in a basement and just list on kingsnake.
With the above qualities you could probably make a million dollars in tulips even today.