Ah, the great Tom Barr submitted his two cents to this, and what a great two cents it is, for I can think of few in this hobby/industry that conduct themselves as professionally/diplomatically and freely has him in a public capacity, and this can only be construed as a credit to him.
As for myself, I will continue to keep my true (professional) identity anonymous, and while I have also had extensive direct interaction with Mr. Amano, and yes, he is a charming fellow indeed, I stand by my analysis of his public and business interactions.
By all means it is not entirely his fault that the public end of his business is managed in the way that it is, for he has many individuals/companies that are there to do this job for him, and they perform their job in the best way that they were academically trained to do i.e. to market and sell product at all cost, in order to impress their superiors and meet internally defined targets.
Nonetheless, his PR reps (and the real businessmen behind his commercial endeavor) recognize that he has the “pole position” in terms of planted aquaria throughout the world and are damned sure they will make the most of it through conventional business tactics for maximum profit for all, as any businessman would seek to do, but what does this mean to the end user? In this case it means that they are trying to push a fabricated utopia that will cost the end user far beyond what they need to spend to achieve the very same thing, which is assuming the end user in question was not an intelligent freethinker that realized they did not need to buy into this whole BS to satisfy their aquaristic needs.
As I stated before, though Takashi himself may be a really swell guy for the most part, the people behind his marketing empire have other interests in mind, and this is obviously appearing to be somewhat of a discredit to him, and not only to me, but to many other intelligent and observant individuals (hobbyists/professionals) throughout the world.
I wish Mr. Amano all the best, as I always have, but I feel obligated to publicly acknowledge that his “entity” in a public capacity needs to be seriously addressed if he wishes to be publicly maintained as a serous asset to the freshwater planted tank community. Obviously there will always be ignorant “loyal subjects”, but please, I am only interested in the advancement of this hobby/art form.
I assure you that Mr. Amano himself is aware of the concern that I have addressed here, however he is a unique and wonderful individual and will address matters as only he sees fit, and beyond that, in a manner that he actually has control of.
Need I even address other really truly bogus entities significantly involved in our pursuit? Marc Weiss? Don’t even get me started, as I would surely end up with an ugly lawsuit on my hands sought through American courts, though this would inevitably be futile.
I am a big fan of Mr. Amano, and I am only concerned with his wellbeing in posting this.
