You know, I don't mean to sound cold, but it could be said that breeding bettas to have huge, bulky finnage such as halfmoon or overhalfmoon, rosetail, or basically anything that's not plakat or wild type is cruel to the fish.
Maybe so......but as owners, we do try our best to give the most optimal conditions for our long finned friends, do we not? They really are a specialty fish where they can't have certain tank mates or too much water flow etc. because of their fins, but we can set up conditions too eliminate any problems having to do with long fins.
The difference between these huge pectorals and long finned fish like HM and Veils is that betta's primary source of movement is their pectorals. A fish with completely clamped fins can still somewhat swim, a fish with pectorals that are too heavy or with no pectorals at all is in BIG trouble.
I've seen these on Aquabid referred to as "Dumbos" I believe. When I first saw them I thought they were cute, but never thought about it being hard for them to swim, but in actuality it probably cuts down on their streamlined evolutionary body survival rate. Not sure if that made sense lol
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