This is pretty off topic but I'd be interested to learn the political leanings of each of us on here. They seem to line up with either conservative mentalities or liberal mentalities. You either think vendors are free to charge what they want and we are free to pay their high prices if we want or you think it's the vendor's responsibility to provide "fair" pricing so that everyone can enjoy these gems of corals that hit the market.
I'm on the free market side. And I'll even go as far as saying, I'm OK if a vendor uses photo shop to enhance their corals. Because ultimately the MARKET is a natural mechanism that will correct this behavior. It goes like this: I buy a super neon crazy coral from Vendor-X. It arrives and looks like brown poo - buyer beware. Result is, I never buy another coral from Vendor-X. This scenario plays out for every first time buyer for Vendor-X. Eventually, everyone knows Vendor-X doesn't deliver as promised and no one orders from them again. With no revenue, Vendor-X goes out of business. The vendors left at the end of the day will be those that offer true to life specimens, provide great customer service, and charge prices that the market is willing to continue to pay over and over again.
For the people who are trying to imply certain vendors inflate their prices and photo shop their corals, you would be making a more powerful statement by 1) never buying anything from them again and 2)not mentioning their names on forums or bashing their prices and practices. You'll find that they will just go away naturally. Buy saying "oh I'm too poor to buy these corals!" or "why would anyone in their right mind pay these prices!" you are stroking the egos of the people on here reading and in the hobby because they can afford to buy those corals. It's just as much about posting a picture of a rainbow colored piece of snot and proclaiming ownership or bragging to your local reefers about a new hot piece as it is about owning the coral itself! By starting threads like this, OP, I hate to say it, but you probably just perpetuated the buying and selling of high priced corals. And us continuing to post about it is doing the same as well.
Best comment in 10 pages, but this debate will continue for another 10 with the same points being made over and over time and again. I think we all get it, some of you really hate this, some of you don't care. So those of you that hate it, just chill, sit back and be the genius in the end with what you want for what you wanna pay. And those that don't care keep doing what you do. These threads are getting a little old with the same responses over and over.

op2:

