Well, where are the bigger names in this business?
Mostly busy running those big businesses would be my guess.
Why aren't they supporting the BOI? Personally I feel like I have been pointedly and obviously snubbed by nearly all of them all these years.
While there may be select individuals who looked at the site and what you were doing and decided not to participate, I strongly suspect that for most of them it was less of a conscious decision.
First of all, they're busy people. Animals, employees, customers and all the demands of owning or operating a business. While a few of them make some time to participate in online forums, rarely do most of them seem to have the time or inclination to participate in more than one or two. Generally KS, being the biggest when it comes to sales (which makes it a self promotion deal) and if they use a second site, it's most often their own (also clearly a matter of self promotion). Fauna would be third on their list- and while those same concepts of promulgation and getting themselves out there would apply, there simply may not be enough time in the day to be really active here.
Consider also the Fauna user base. It's shifted as it's grown, but Fauna still primarily targets the better educated and more experienced user. Most of the posts by the really active fauna members are coming from people who are themselves working, on some level, in reptile production or sales. The remainder of the really active members are intensely involved enough so that they're more than aware of who those big names are. They may not know ME too well, but I certainly know all of THEM and they don't need to advertise themselves to me because I already know who they are.
Which in turn explains why few or none of the ones you consider big names choose to advertise with you. Their advertising budget is tied up in places where it will introduce them to potential customers who didn't previously know they existed. Kingsnake is about the one website where that's the case, some of the bigger name niche breeders may advertise on niche sites but their marketing dollars are tied up in a way that prioritizes the benefit they receive. These days, Fauna actually would probably be a pretty good investment for them considering how low your prices for advertisements are but they became aware of your website when there was nobody using it who didn't already know them. They may have missed the changes your member base has gone through over the intervening years.
I admit, some of it may also be a calculated clinical detachment from the site's content. Valuable? Absolutely. Necessary... well, a lot of people sure think so (although that doesn't obligate YOU to keep footing the bill). All in all though, sometimes there are still cases where people verbally start rolling around in the dirt trying to knock one anothers' teeth out. Not wanting to be involved with that makes some sense from a business perspective- they want to be seen as clean cut businesses, not necessarily people with emotions and tempers and opinions. Details that make up who they actually are as a human being... but also a potential point of disagreement that might send a potential customer elsewhere. Making an opinion public just lets the public know that there's someone with an opinion. When I was in Massachusetts, prior to the last presidential election there were businesses; national corporations in some cases, where the individual owners or managers were displaying political support signs. I stopped doing business with all of them because I didn't feel it was an appropriately professional behavior for them to engage in. I wouldn't want to risk my money with someone who might arbitrarily decide that my different political opinion might warrant their bias. Bigger industry names might not participate too much for much the same reason, they don't want to offer
anything that might accidently alienate
anyone.
Further, they don't benefit as much from what you have created as someone smaller does. They have the capitol to absorb the occasional bad deal as part of the cost of doing business. Someone sends them some dead or misrepresented animals? That goes into the ledger in red ink and the tax professionals will wash it away come April. They don't need to know about the fifty dollar scams and the two hundred dollars that was lost due to poor shipping. And they really don't need the good guy threads that crop up about them either, their reputations are pretty much secure and the benefit to them is negligible. It goes back to the fact that they are already extremely successful and entrenched as such. Most people interested in the products they sell already know who they are and where to find them.
It's gotta be tough from your perspective, I'm not sure in your position I could avoid personalizing it. From the outside though, standing where I am, there are reasonable and logical arguments for why they may not participate here or support your site more actively. It simply doesn't offer them much that they actually need.
Quite frankly, I lost quite a bit of respect for those "bigger" names over the years as I watched them studiously ignore this site and turn their back on me. So if the BOI does finally fail, I don't want to hear a God damned one of them say a thing about it being "too bad" or "they wish it had survived". Because as far as I can tell, they would be lying through their teeth from both of their faces about giving a damn about me, this site, you, and everyone in general who see this as a viable way to REALLY help clean up this business.
I think it's a real shame that you're left with those kinds of feelings over their indifference. Again, I acknowledge that there may be *some* who have made a calculated decision that was opposed to your goals here, but I really suspect most of them are just up to their eyeballs in other concerns.
And when you are considering giving them your hard earned dollars after the BOI is dead and gone, I want you to remember this.... NONE of them have ever even so much as paid for a banner ad or forum sponsorship here. None.
I'm sorry to have to say this but... I'm not convinced of any malicious intent from most of them. If they have something I want to buy and I know what their prices and quality are, I'll still potentially choose to do business with them.
I'm right there with you in thinking that some more support from some more of them would have helped you attain your goals more thoroughly, faster and in a way that was more permanent but I'm not willing to boycott them for indifference or for having a different set of priorities for their money and time.
Hell I had one of the bigger python breeders in the world contact me about someone using one of their photographs on this site without permission a while back. I took care of it for him, and in closing he says something like "Damn, I hate these scammers. I wish someone could do something about them..." I was shocked senseless... Luckily the correspondence was via email, otherwise I'm sure my thoughts transformed into verbalizations would not have been fit for family listening. Was that a thinly veiled barb, or was this guy TRULY that clueless? I left that email unreplied to, as I am certain it would have shown up somewhere later on as plain evidence about my uncouth behavior and attitude.
Yeah, I'd sort of stare at that one with an eyebrow raised too. I don't know that I would assume some sinister motive though.
Conspiracy theories are fun but if you go around genuinely believing them, people are going to think you've leapt off the diving board into the Stinso end of the swimming pool. I do not say this to mock you or attack you- just to maybe prompt you to take a few deep breaths (the metaphorical kind, continue physically respirating in whatever manner you choose) and consider the idea that it may not all be some vast and deliberate plot that's left them less than involved and supportive.
All that said, it'd be interesting to see what happened if some of the bigger names were made aware of the current traffic numbers. They might still choose not to buy banner ads... but it'd be interesting if even a few of them did.
