With the right fish, it's not torturing. Thousands of betta live happily in quart jars and aren't stressed.
That's not the point..
The point people still putting Betta fish in jars promote it with a fantasy thought that the fish still is happy. This to make others copy this absurd custom to make a profit. It might not be torture for a moment in time as long as the water in the jar can sustain it. The moment it can't anymore the animal will die an agenizing death. Many do, all failure stories swept fanaticaly under the carpet. The goldfish can live up to 30 years, the majority the ones kept in bowls don't make over 3 years. If you make it up to 5 you are a championado in titled of a medle.
It can live 30 years, but hence i loved it to death in 3.. That's far from torture!? Isn't it...
There are dog breeds that are bred with a beuatifull neet and gorgious small heads, unfortunately to small, the brain keeps growing and grows to big. Eyes pop out, makes them look even more adorable, the dog suffers from chronic migrane.. Some even go mad from the pain they have to endure and have to put down by the vet. Torture? No man that's also love, loved to death. It's all about love only put in a morbid way. Practicing this is more about loving yourself than loving the animal in question.
All true all recorded facts....
It still happens on every street corner.. The debate about it is as endless, ludicrous and fruitless as the debate between the atheist and the theologist.
Just try to find the logic and morallity behind the fact, why peopel advice against keeping fish in unfiltered and etc etc. bowls. Just give it a thought.
IMHO the morallity and logic behind it is that you put the fish at risk, the day you discover the bowl crashed, the fish are most likely very dead, or sick, or at least in very bad shape. In very small water volumes this can happen overnight, while you are happily snorring and dreaming. About all the compliments you get from friends about your beautifull small fish in small bowls.. It's a very common experience a lot of poeple tried before you. That's the reason why most responsible people advice against it. You shouldn't put the life of any animal under your care at unnecessary risk. It's the opposite of caretaking. We advice against that, no mater the arguments..
And if you want to put that all aside, still think litely of it and find it all exaggerated overconcerned BS.. And still determined to reinvent the wheel and make a rounder one.
Than you just should do that and proof us all wrong. Just remember "It takes more than one swallow to make a summer".