I would say it's both easier and harder. Easier if you have $$$
I live in the middle of nowhere now, but there are quite a few places that ship corals and many of them always have stock. For the first 11 or so years in the hobby I was in the gta and saw a lot of changes.
10+ years ago there were about 3-4 dedicated reef shops + big als who at the time had quite poor selection. Coral colonies were routinely $40 regardless of what it was and occasionally 3 for 100 or $30 for stock that did not sell the first day. If you weren't there the first day you were getting brown pieces.
In the old days in the toronto area regardless of what shop it was you had to line up before the store opened on shipment day. I can recall on more then one occasion running into a store to grab something I saw a picture of posted. People buying zoa's that only had a few polyps open because they couldn't take the chance someone else would snatch it. Back then you'd bag your own coral because there were several dozen people in the store. Even the busier stores would let a few people in lock the door and let a few more in after they left.
I recall catching a purple tang myself and at the time $90 seemed very expensive but red sea shipments were not as common. Now they are routinely up to $200. Some of that is the dollar, some of that is the passage of time and some is demand. 2 weeks later you can still find decent pieces in shops.
When Australia first opened up the line ups were even longer. Now can find some nice frags and even some colonies, 24/7 online. Since these prices were already considerably higher than indo the prices for aussie stuff hasn't seen the same kind of inflation. Even fish regular stuff is always available and moderately rare stuff is also not as difficult to locate just considerably pricier. Look at J&L's current livestock list as an example of stuff that a few short years ago were much harder to find.
Now at least in the gta there are a ton more both reef stores and fish stores that sell saltwater stuff. I'd say about a dozen good to pretty good ones just off the top of my head. If one store doesn't have what you want you can just go to the next and your shopping schedule is not limited to when the store opens on shipment day.
Online selection for corals still has a long way to go but that being said anytime of any day you can probably find something you'd want to put in your tank unless you are jam packed or super picky. Fish hasn't really changed much. J&L's new and noteworthy still shows the same amount of livestock as when I ordered naked clownfish from them in 2006 (still have one).
This is a little different perspective then those on the west coast but to sum up I'd say selection has greatly improved but price has drastically increased due to demand, dollar and the passage of time.
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