Gonna put up some generic debating questions because it's holidays, and holidays are for happy thoughts, not dwelling on the shitstain that is the Trump administration.

This is a view I've seen on social media. The argument is that zoos are inherently wrong, no matter their conditions, because animals are not for human entertainment.

Oh boy, one of my favorite discussion questions. :)

On the one hand, I agree with the general thoughts that @ThePrincessTale mentioned: animals are not for human entertainment and shouldn't be in enclosures.
However, in the word we live in, humans need to be convinced to care about nature/animals and a zoo is a great way to provide that convincing. I mean, if a person lives in a city when are they ever going to see animals? Where will they be educated about their conservation? The zoo. I had a friend once that grew up in the city and went years without knowing where milk comes from and what a cow was. I share this not to laugh at my friend, but to use this real example to illustrate my point.

I'd like to conclude with that I don't think certain animals should ever be kept in zoos. I usually bring up elephants when talking about this because their ranges in the wild are far larger than a zoo could provide in an enclosure. And concrete flooring is very bad for their feet, etc, etc. So while I do think that zoos are valuable, I don't agree with certain animals being kept in them.

Old zoos were created for entertainment purposes, so they went out and caught animals to showcase and, at best, did not know enough about those animals to treat them properly, or, at worst, had zero interest in treating them well at all. That was very, very, very bad.

But zoos shifted quite radically to become about conservation and rescuing animals and keeping them safe from man-made shit, and then emphasised conservation education etc which in turn helps global conservation programs and can help shift understandings of animals and the environment. There are still very bad zoos around the world, but the movement seems generally towards conservation.

^ I agree.

I've heard that some zoos actually aid in the preservation of endangered species.