Times certainly have changed. I remember when people laughed at me for paying $50 for six captive bred Keelbacks, and when most elapids were given away rather than sold, when it was hard to find someone willing to take small elapids for free, the same species people would now stab their grandmothers to get their hands on. Not long before I came into the scene, it was rare that anyone would want to breed snakes, and if they accidentally got eggs they'd not be incubated, because otherwise you'd have to find a home for the babies. I still like the old article where a few eggs of an Olive Python were incubated out of novetly and only most of the clutch disposed of, rather than the whole lot; it shows how much things have changed.
The way things are done, the birth of an industry which was spawned by the new hobby (which is an entirely different and separate thing from the old hobby), the whole mentality, the demographic of the people, their reasons for keeping, their concept of what reptiles are, it has all changed. You used to keep snakes because you loved snakes, and you knew everyone would think you were mad. Now people think it's cool, and even those who still say you're mad say it very differently from the way they used to.
Interestingly though, I remember many people back in the day saying they wished snake keeping was more accepted. We still see many people desperate to promote the hobby/industry, and get as many snakes into as many homes as possible. Some of us weren't too keen to see that happen, but most were, and now their dream has become a reality, a reality they complain about :lol: (I'm not talking about you, langy, don't get me wrong). Be careful what you wish for! Sometimes you don't realise what you have until it's gone.
People used to get into reptiles because they loved reptiles, completely independently of anyone else, completely in spite of the reaction everyone gave them. The old school herp learned to handle snakes at a young age, out by themselves in the local bushland, catching whatever the local snakes were. These days the thought of an unsupervised, bare-footed 12 year old catching an Eastern Brown conjurs responses of "Oh my god! The parents should be punished for allowing it!", but back in the day, that was the way it happened. I'm glad to be just old enough to have taught myself in that way, rather than growing up in the new culture.
When things started to change around 8-10 years ago (who remembers 2002 when the first albino pythons were advertised and many of us speculated that they'd never be popular? :LOL: What a song you could have bought them for at the time!), and when they really changed dramatically during 2004, I wasn't terribly happy about it, but after a further year or two I just accepted the direction things were going in. There are some things you just can't fight. The thing which most destroyed the hobby's culture was money. Money brings out the worst in people, and we've seen that in a lot of the older herps. Love and passion for the snakes has been thrown away by many in persuit of the dollar.
On the plus side of the brave new world of herpetoculture, the general community's feelings towards snakes has increased massively. The amount of information which exists is much greater, and, well... okay, I'm out! :lol:
So where to from here? I remember thinking that natural snakes would always be the most popular, because back in the day, people liked that sort of thing (remember when if you hatched something with the 'wrong' colour or pattern you'd have to give it away or sell it cheaply, because it didn't look right? :lol: The opportunities we missed! :lol: ). What I didn't expect was about 50 times more people coming into the scene, virtually all of them with a completely different reason for wanting to keep snakes. My prediction is that next, everyone will be in love with Carpet and to a lesser extent Antaresia morphs above everything else. We'll see the continuation of hybrids falsely being sold as pure to an increasingly greater extent, until at some point people will stop bothering to put the fake labels on, and people will stop caring. I've been wrong before and I may be wrong about that, but, I guarantee that down the track, people will bicker, argue, lie, complain, and talk about how good things used to be!