| Yes JR, our Capitalistic nation is all about money, and everything is judged against the almighty dollar, the bottom line, and profit profit profit. It's the culture we've built as a nation and we have to deal with it. It's just ridiculous to think that our hobby of koi keeping will ever successfully be injected into the regular mainstream vein of society with any stability, since many if not most people stepping into it will not weather the work it can take to keep a paradise from turning into a sewer. But a few will...and our subculture of koi kichi will expand to accept them.
I remember not so long ago a thread or post that you made concerning secondary markets for koi. I would think that breeders and dealers and pond builders are thinking along these lines to make their endeavors more profitable. There's a lot of culls to each koi kept for the pet and show market, and I can easily see on eBay what some people are doing with them. *L* In a loose sense, this is a covert expanding of the hobby, but so would marketing fish poop and mulm as a byproduct of ponding for garden fertilizer and amendments. Expanding the market for high end koi for shows will never be a sure shot at profits because there just aren't enough people dedicated or well-to-do enough to run with those big dogs, and in a sense, it is becoming the secondary market....
|