It's corporate, y'all.... People sitting in a cozy office in California or Arizona with their dog are the ones making blanket rules for animal care. At store-level, there's very very little employees can properly provide without a district leader coming in and making a report.... we would try, though. Sick chameleons were often sent home with someone who could rehab & rehome them. Unfortunately stores just aren't provided with the right type of enclosure or allowed to use the right supplies to keep them healthy.
Even feeder types are on a schedule with a set limit on how many you're supposed to use regardless of how many reptiles are in stock (I think for my store [a petsmart], we were expected to use no more than maybe 50 small crickets on a cricket day, while still being instructed to feed 6-7 per bearded dragon, which we regularly kept 5+ of, plus anoles, frogs, leopard geckos, other lizards, chameleons... it was so unrealistic.)
As for bettas.... it's just gross, misinformed cost-cutting. I've heard of some stores actually sectioning off their tanks to put bettas in, but they're meant to be impulse-buys. Easy to grab off the shelf, no questions (whereas for other fish, we're supposed to ask their tank size and we're "allowed", sometimes, to decline a sale if we'd consider it potential abuse. It's on employees to learn fish care, though) and advertised as needing next to nothing. Plus, they jam-pack the stores with so freaking many that there's no way to give them all the care they need ?
On a more cheerful note though, here's Wasabi while I was cleaning her prison a day before bringing her home.
