Fair or not, it is not good for the geckos as everything declines with the price, i.e. genetic standards, sanitary standards (disease is common in all the commonly bred geckos). I also find just by posting something on Kingsnake often lowers the perception of price and/or quantity when it is the same few individuals up for sale. It seems to be the truelly rare geckos suffering this while the common ones are hyped well above typical mark up. The public educated on this would help everyone.
That is a valid point. As price comes down and more and more people are buying the geckos more will obviously come into the hands of those who will not take care of them properly. Whether this is because they don't have the knowledge (which can be changed) or they have the attitude that they don't care because it was a cheap gecko anyway (which, unfortunately, can not be changed) It is also true that the higher the cost, usually, the more attention is paid to the animal to make sure it gets the care it needs. Still, I don't see that as a reason to initiate artificially high prices on an animal that the market won't support. All it might do is delay the price plunge a while and ensure that it will be even more severe when it does happen. More and more people will see the price remaining stable. They won't realize that it is not because of the free market but because of some artificial price standards. More people will get into breeding the animals because they see the price remain high. Then when all those people can't sell their animals because everyone willing to pay the high prices has done so they will have to drop their prices. This sudden drop will cause more people, for whom the price was just out of their range, to jump on the breeding train because "after all, the price has remained fairly constant for a long time" and the spiral continues downward until the price reaches a point where 1. people will be able to buy them simply for pets and not future retirement investments. 2 those people who paid a ton of money for their animals will get rid of them because the the babies are not selling for as much as the are worth in their minds and they are losing money. Either way, production drops and the price levels off, way below what it was several generations before.
I also feel that there is some confusion with truly rare gecko species with all the morphs available in Leopard geckos and Cresteds. Some of these morphs, simply because of genetics, are truly rare but IMHO a 1 in 64 chance leopard gecko is junk beside say a masobe.
As far as kingsnake goes, I would tend to agree. I don't want to offend anyone but many of the people who advertise on KS are those who only do this for the money. I don't know you all so I don't know if anyone here advertises on KS but I will say that I do see some ads for individual geckos that look outstanding and are offered by breeders who truly care about their animals. I tend to see more from jobbers and wholesalers and retailers who, if the price dropped too much, would be looking for a different line of work in a heartbeat. I tend to avoid people such as these.
All in all, I would say yes, higher prices would probably help out some of the geckos. Especially those, like the masobe, (not that I have seen CB masobes in any sort of price range I could afford) that are not easy to care for. Still, you will never get people to agree on prices. When prices are the same only quality of the animals and reputation of the seller are variable. Those with less than stellar reputations, or those with inferior animals, will have to find another way to compete and they only way they will be able to is by lowering their price. And once that starts there is no stopping it until the market adjusts