In my opinion, I don't really matter much in the betta world =S I try my best, and I HAVE made a difference, but it's because of something that I never foresaw. To be brutally honest, bettas will not be saved anytime soon. Why? Because they've been seen as decorative fish for far too long, and people believe that's all there is to it. No matter how much you preach, it's just easier for them to pick up a betta, plop it in a vase, and hope for it to do the best. Even if I protest, and stop buying, some other new person will just shrug and take the betta/bettas I had hoped to save. While I may not doing wonders for the entire species, I did save THAT one. Remember the old man and the starfish? If not, look it up. Like that old man, I may not have been able to save all of the starfish, but THAT starfish sure is happier. Its the same for the bettas. It's fighting a losing battle to just stop, and the stores probably say the same. The stores make far too much money off of bettas to give up what they're doing. Lets face it, people. It's easier to put them into cups and call them easy-to-care-for fish than to put them into individual 2.5 gallon tanks and say that they'll live forever off of only a bit of food, and no water changes. Plus, when the fish die, they'll make even more money when that person comes back for a replacement.
For me, I realize that I'm just another person to them. I'm sure they receive plenty of complaints from people like us, who care about the wellbeing of the fish, but just DON'T care. Sure, they'll make it seem like they're doing something, maybe by a bit bigger cup, but they're just trying to get us off their backs. Like puppy-stores and puppy-mills still exist, though they've been protested on and such, bettas in petstores will continue to live in horrible conditions. The best I can do is hope that the one I choose will live a long, happy life.
That's MY two cents, and it may not make a lot of sense. It was a little confusing writing it