The "Good Old Days" of Etsy Are Gone

As I understand it, in the beginning, a shop was one person responsible for everything. Design, purchasing supplies, making the products, promoting & marketing,  shipping. Though I do have to believe that there probably was some undisclosed cases of family members pitching in.

A few sellers became very successful,  and in order to grow needed to add staff to assist them. And I salute the sellers who worked themselves into this position.

Etsy then had to make a decision, embrace the successful sellers by changing the rules, or forcing them out. Well, to my mind, Etsy would have been foolish to force them out. After all, these successful sellers were generating a high level of fees.

So in typical Etsy fashion, they changed the rules without thinking things through clearly. In their naive idealism, they thought everyone would play by the rules,  no matter how ambiguous those rules were.

The loopholes in the new rules were big enough to sail a Chinese cargo container ship through. It is now inundated with resellers of cheap mass produced trinkets. Then, rather than admitting they had made mistakes, they changed definitions, silenced dissent and in general tried to cover their butts. Their previous experience in the "everybody is special" society gave them no tools to use when suddenly they were faced with the fact their actions had consequences for which they were accountable.

I wish I had the answer to get Etsy back to its original vision (well, without the changing the world mumbo jumbo), while still embracing the sellers who became so successful.

But a good start would be to let an adult into the room.

As with anything I post here, you are free to tweet, copy,  post on a billboard,  whatever.

Lost 5 Pounds With 3rd World Diet

In the past 7 days I have lost 5 pounds.

I start every day with a breakfast of oatmeal or Cheerios and a slice of home made rye/whole wheat toast.

Around noon I'll eat an orange while I am doing a one mile walk. And a few minutes of upper body work with a pair of 10 lb dumbbells.

Late afternoon, I stop for supper. No special food, just whatever I have. But as a rule, there is very little meat compared to the amount of rice and vegetables. I almost always have a bowl of premium ice cream or sherbet for dessert.  Then another mile walk and weights.

After I finish my morning and pot of coffee, I drink plenty of ice water the rest of the day.

In the evening if I get a bad case of the munchies, I eat an apple.

The name is inspired by my Dad. He lost a lot of weight one time. My aunt asked him how he had done it. He said, "You hear how have the world goes to bed hungry every night? Well, I am in that half. I don't eat anything after supper.

Phone Interviews

It seems some that some of the phone interviews start today. It will be enlightening to see what comes out of them.

I am having a hard time believing they have had a sudden epiphany and are going to try to correct course.

Some of the posts about it give some clue.  I am especially curious about the questions about the forums.

Hopefully, some of the participants will be willing to share their experience with us.

Since I am unable to post in the main Etsy forums, some Etsy friends have suggested I start a blog in case ya'll wanted to keep up with what his cranky old fart is thinking. Feel free to comment. But remember this blog is public and searchable.  While I doubt Etsy will expend any of their resources to track me down, just keep that in mind if you post here.

This blog will be mainly rambling thought of a pipe making old codger. Also known as a COF