With any dealer, the fish do the talking. If Dan's keeps offering the fish few others do, then if I were in the States, I'd buy from him.
Thinking about the entire thread, at least we know what his water is and his practices are. We buy blind from places we have no clue about. Online fish buying is a minefield. So we should let the fish choices do the talking. He made himself a niche by offering some rare and wonderful fish other dealers often wouldn't risk carrying.
Fish dealers can be like white sixties blues players. They make a name with a flashy version of the real thing, then once they're known, release album after album of insipid pop. He's made a name with great fish choices. Now his customers see if his expansion makes him just another online dealer, or if he develops his genre.
If he's firing respected staff, maybe they go off to compete, pick up the slack and become sellers of rarities. Or not. The fish trade is in constant flux, and with tariffs raising your prices, small companies will be in grave danger of vanishing. I'd watch and see if there was a sudden influx of the usual cheap, diseased farmed fish onto his lists. If not, stick with him.
There's a Canadian store that ran off wild caught Amazon fish that expanded and suddenly has Singapore specials. They've lost me as a regular, but they'll probably do well. It's a regular part of fishkeeping life's great pageant. The profits on farmed fish are so much higher, and people look that way. Sometimes they just remain interested in rarities until they get enough capital, or enough credibility to get loans, then bland out into the mainstream.
