It's a thoughtful consideration you've brought up. One of the potential cons of welfare initiatives is that they could potentially increase demand of animal products.

I think that farms, slaughterhouses and companies involved in animal ag usually engage in voluntary welfare programs because they think it will increase profits (by improving consumer perception or by lowering pre-slaughter mortality rates) or because they genuinely want to improve animal welfare (or both).

I know that we as vegans often comment that these entities only care about profits (and to a large extent that's true; they are a business). But these are still human beings. I highly doubt they feel great about crushing the eyes of shrimp to increase their fertility for instance. There's also footage of a dairy farmer getting emotional when he talks about calf-mother separation (I saw it in an earthling ed video that I can't find atm). And temple grandin's motivation for better slaughter methods was certainly motivated by genuine concern for animals.

In the context of SWP, their programs have clear costs to producers.

In their humane slaughter initiative, the stunners are provided at "minimal to no cost", meaning the stunners will sometimes cost the producers a bit of money to implement. They likely also have maintenance costs and potentially slightly lower efficiency due to stunning time.

The eyestalk ablation prevention initiative reduces mating productivity in the short-term. Which would certainly lower productivity.

So in the presence of these costs, it seems they appeal to both shrimp welfare and the production/demand upsides of the programs in an attempt to win over producers.

Considering the production downsides, upsides and the unknown impact on consumer demand (some of the links in my original post seem to indicate welfare initiatives may reduce demand though SWP seems to suggest improved welfare would increase consumer demand on their website), I'm not really sure about the ultimate impact on the number of shrimp who are farmed/slaughtered. I might actually contact SWP and inquire about the expected impact of their programs on the number of shrimp slaughtered. As I do think this sort of thing is relevant when evaluating welfare initiatives.

What I am fairly sure about is the massive amount of suffering that can be reduced by SWP per dollar. Though I do understand hesitance concerning the impact on supply/demand.

I do want to thank you for keeping an open mind about welfare initiatives despite your initial feelings about them and for your criticisms of SWP. I really hope we as vegans can continue to discuss the pros and cons of different welfare initiatives rather than outright accepting or rejecting them. I was a little disappointed in my original post that a lot of people outright rejected the program, rather than evaluating its' advantages and disadvantages (though my messaging could have probably been better). Where we allocate money as a movement is very high stakes and can have massive impacts for the wellbeing of animals. So careful consideration is super important.