Its great to see a discussion from some of the most respected and experienced CP growers around. I plead guilty to the fact that I have bought many of those seed on ebay. I must also mention that sadly, many if not all of them have minimal or no germination at all. However, its a habit that dies hard: You never know if the next batch might germinate. Its a vicious unending passion and hope. It is this collector mentality that makes us go and buy a new set of seed everytime next listings show up.
The sad reality is that this enterprise of Ebay seed selling will go on until there is an actual "recognized and documented" "legal seed source". I have mentioned it a few times and I realize the difficulties of establishing such nurseries: But... if anyone needs to get an example: Look at the Wollemi pine. A endangered prehistoric species of pine discovered in the Australian forests. Almost immediately upon announcement of the discovery, there were dedicated nursaries set up to sell plants to the public to quench collector's demands and demands of educational institutions.
I am glad that there is a fantastic establishment for nepenthes atleast in one region of its range: The Sabah Parks Authority. They have taken initiatives to protect these plants earlier. I have read that they have previously transplanted wild N. rajah to other parts of the mountain during El Nino events. They clearly recognize the appeal of this genus of plants. The start-up captial, the space, the logistics are complicated, but if only they can legally collect seed populations, grow nursery stock in the natural habitat and then produce seed for mass market worldwide, that would be a perfect solution for our demands. Now imagine that situation in various parts of Southeast Asia that is responsible for species from a particular area: It woud be a perfect solution for obtaining responsibly collected seed from rare species.
On the other side, in cultivation hybridization and seed production programs aren't as successful in public outreach as they can be. I understand the difficulty in having males and females of a particular species flower at the same time and the availibility of diversity in clones of rare species in cultivation. I really like the idea of the nepenthes sex registry, however, have a look at some of the species that have flowered: We see desirable and rare species such as argentii, adnata, aristolochioides etc. However, the reality is that any seed produced in cultivation tends to be circulated within personal collections only. When do we ever see publicly offered seed of N. rajah, N. villosa or N. argentii crosses?
By instinct we want to set ourselves apart. All of us want our own unique individual plants and diverse collections from the next person. That is the basal cause for our need for seed grown plants inspite of positively identified TC clones of nepenthes species (well, most of them...ignore the eymae, macrophylla issues for now).
I hope I am not stepping on anyone's toes or personally attacking anyone here. Its just a general opinion from me and I am interested to hear what you experts have to say about it.