Embarrassing confession... I was just remembering that less than a week ago I literally said the words:
"oh Etsy, if lovin' you is wrong, I don't wanna be right!"
Part of me wants to barf when I remember that, and part of me wants to cry. I mean, how Fucking sad is that? The fact is, I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed and I have, in fact, been betrayed. I also feel really stupid now that I know how much disdain EtsyCorp had for me, and my fellow sellers all along. Are we nothing but their crafting Ho's??? How about a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T?
I know everybody always says this, but when it comes down to it, the thing I loved about E was talking to the other members, most of whom were amazingly intelligent, funny, kind, generous, interesting, MIND-BLOWINGLY talented men and women. There really is so much love flowing through the community. It's completely beyond belief.
I was very hesitant to find fault with E at first, but as it became more and more clear that this wasn't JUST an ironic little cock-up, that it had layers and layers and layers of "FUCK YOU" written all over it, inside and out, and when the site itself addressed my concerns with a response that was beneath contempt... well... here I am... Illusions definitely shattered.
Part of me is starting to feel that way one does when you start to heal from a bad relationship, where things are starting to normalize in your life again and you kinda just want to call them that ONE last time... BUT THATS HOW THEY SUCK YOU BACK IN (LOL)!!
What I need right now is a hot beverage and one of those emergency blankets they use on crash victims to keep them from going into shock. That's how fast this whole thing took place. I'm just amazed that what I am experiencing is the result of a business relationship, and not escaping from some 3rd world dictatorship where dissenters get silenced and disappear mysteriously. A place where pronouncements and proclamations are made from somewhere "on high" - but no one knows quite where or by whom. A place where they wring the peasants dry for all they have, and convince them to think of the bright new day that is coming for the community, just around the corner, if you just stick around until the holidays... until the new shiny button comes out... you just have to work on your photos...
Holy wake-up call, Batman.
Things are just starting to come back to me at random moments since I have been disconETSYed- Like it was quite recently that we went through that whole wider page/ shop announcement:announcement: fiasco. I think that is where I finally got so mad I began formulating plans to escape. Does anybody remember the insulting post by Rokali about how (as I saw it) we are too stupid to make decisions about our own shop announcement's length, so they were gonna fix it for us? They said our shop announcements were driving people away, they didn't want to look at words. And the second "announcement" is still prominent in everyone's shop, making all sellers look illiterate. I can't count how many problems I had with buyers since then because of that- they almost never saw any of that info after that. And their self-satisfied response was that the bounce rate improved so they knew it was the right thing to do.
ReplyDeleteWhen all that happened is when I started mouthing off in the forums alot. At one point I said it seemed like a bunch of unsupervised children were running things, saying "lets see what happens when we do this" with OUR businesses, then looking only at the results which let them think it had been the right thing to do. And, they closed all the threads of people who were mad about it, usually signing off with canned responses, leaving one sanctioned thread for pissed off people to gather and grouse in. Sound familiar?
it does indeed. How could I have not seen it before?
ReplyDeleteActually I stayed away from the forums for a long time because I sometimes got mauled by roving mobs of assholes looking to beat someone down.
I mostly hung out in "chat" and I only once or twice had to deal with straight up meanness or rudeness. The chat is where it's at. But I am hesitant to go in there and tell them what has happened. I am afraid they will blow it off and that will just embitter me to a level I dare not imagine. Maybe one of the other refugees will have the guts to do it.
Meh- If they don't know what has happened by now they might not care. It is infuriating, But as Andy Warhol said "I'm just gonna stop caring- then they can't hurt you".
ReplyDeleteOn a more positive note, I got my first entire page of listings up on ArtFire tonight! Yay! Putting a big dent in that learning curve hehe.
Oh man, I just "popped my head in" on the chats... Boy did I get a chilly welcome... Phew!
ReplyDeletesomeone said "I saw all that mess in the forums, and I was like can you people find something NOT to bitch about?"
At that point I knew it was time to quietly excuse myself, and return to the refuge...
MY GOD. WAKE. UP.
Etsy is only what its customers make it, the members ARE Etsy, without sellers stocking shops Etsy is NOTHING but an empty web site and a redundant company with unemployed ex staff.
ReplyDeleteThe members and their shops and items are what people love when they say they love Etsy and the company should remember that and get off their pedestal and provide their customers with a good service instead of promoting outside manufacturers and their boycot campaigns impinging on the sales of the Etsy members.
I went to the chats to say "hello" since I hadn't been in for probably more than a week. I got the chilliest reception from people I've been talking to every day for more than 6 months...
ReplyDeleteOne even said "I saw all that mess in the forums, and I was like, do you people have anything NOT to bitch about?"
I then knew it was time to quietly excuse myself and return to the refuge.
I feel sorry for those I leave behind. It wasn't until now, that I woke up and realized, much like an addict, or victim of abuse does, that I have a problem...
Thank you all for being here for me, and for each other!!
Sadly I have seen many people slowly become disillusioned over the 2 1/2 years I have been an Etsy member and I am sure it will continue that way. The sayings "Ignorance is bliss" and "he who smiles isn't aware of the problem" are very accurate.
ReplyDeleteDue to the circumstances when I joined I never had to undergo that experience as I was seeing them for what they are from the start.
Is it just me, or did anyone else notice that most of the people who defend Etsy are fairly new with under 100 sales? It occurs to me that Etsy is for hobby-sellers ONLY, and that is how they run it. Sellers who have been at all successful are the ones who are shouting for better treatment, because Etsy makes it damn near impossible to run a successful business. You can't get any answers, the site is down frequently, emails are not sent, changes are made haphazardly leaving sellers scrambling to deal with it, and I will not even start on the whole search engine/front page favoritism popularity contests/feedback crap. They have no solid plan, no direction. Just a bunch of silly kids. So that is who that site is for- If we want to grow a business, and make a living from it as Rokali said, then we need to enter the grown-up world of e-commerce and not relay on a bunch of silly children to do it for us. In the real world, who has the power to shut your store down completely without warning whenever they want to? No warning, no "lets work on this together", nothing. Just "we will show you to talk mean to us". This is not doing business, this is playing at doing business. What works at your lemonade stand will not work for me anymore, Rokali (who doesn't show his real name and has no credibility).
ReplyDelete(((HUGS ALL))) (handing out emergency blankets) I posted something earlier in response to some in the "new place" that may not understand:
ReplyDeleteI told them I was trying to heal on my own and keep it out of the "new" forums. Hell, I was caught off-guard at how hard this hit me, and wondered if I was going crazy. I thought about therapy, REALLY. Can you picture it, though....
"Ahhhhhh, so let me get this straight...you went to this crafty thingy place...oh? conspiracy, you say?.....censorship?....mutings, bullying? Tell me, are there any (holds up fingers to motion quotation marks) "people" here in the room with us that shouldn't be here?" LOL
We have been traumatized. No one understands but us.
Sorry, have to add.....about the "disillusioned"...when I was dealing with an abusive relationship, I came across this, and it speaks volumes...Why do people stay? If you throw a frog into a hot pan, it will jump out. If you put a frog into a cold pan, but slowly turn the heat up, it will stay until it cooks to death.
ReplyDelete"Stockholm Syndrome"...where prisoners of war will start to see their captors as their ally.
Excellent points Epicetera, ha! Stockholm Syndrome rings SO true in this instance.
ReplyDeleteEscaped from Cult of Etsy said...
Is it just me, or did anyone else notice that most of the people who defend Etsy are fairly new with under 100 sales? It occurs to me that Etsy is for hobby-sellers ONLY, and that is how they run it. Sellers who have been at all successful are the ones who are shouting for better treatment, because Etsy makes it damn near impossible to run a successful business. You can't get any answers, the site is down frequently, emails are not sent, changes are made haphazardly leaving sellers scrambling to deal with it, and I will not even start on the whole search engine/front page favoritism popularity contests/feedback crap. They have no solid plan, no direction. Just a bunch of silly kids. So that is who that site is for- If we want to grow a business, and make a living from it as Rokali said, then we need to enter the grown-up world of e-commerce and not relay on a bunch of silly children to do it for us. In the real world, who has the power to shut your store down completely without warning whenever they want to? No warning, no "lets work on this together", nothing. Just "we will show you to talk mean to us". This is not doing business, this is playing at doing business. What works at your lemonade stand will not work for me anymore, Rokali (who doesn't show his real name and has no credibility).
_____________
Wow, you really said it! Earlier in our mega-thread, maybe around page 500-something (WTF) someone came in saying "well don't you think maybe the editorial staff is just young and too embarrassed to reach out?"
First of all, this isn't the high school newspaper, people's businesses (and livelihoods in some cases), are at stake. We pay them a lot of money... for what exactly? So they can advertise for Target? And simultaneously sabotage our businesses? Why? What *exactly* do they provide for us, besides a bunch of (malfunctioning) code?
I don't see why it is so outrageous to hold E to the same standards of any other professional entity I do business with. There is a basic level of respect owed to one's customers. To err in judgment is one thing, but to compound that injury by responding to your customers with insincerity, condescension, stonewalling, punishment and mischaracterization of their concerns shows a disrespect beyond contempt.
I mean, I have done business with countless companies in my life, but I have never seen such a shocking, amateurish, unabashedly disrespectful attitude on the part of representatives of a company in all that time. What exactly would you do if you called a customer service number today and someone on the other end of the line said "go to hell." That's basically what happened here. I know I'm not the ONLY ONE who sees it. And though I wont "hold a grudge", I wont forget about being burned and go back to using their "services". And I will be vocal about why.
(((Epi))) and all who need it get big hugs-
ReplyDeleteJust remember to breath. Please, please try to stop yourselves from going back there and banging your heads against the wall. All in or all out as they say. No harm no foul if you really cannot break away just yet business wise, you will in your own time. If you are breaking away at this point, lets start trying to let that crap go and stop torturing ourselves with what is going on in the forums. Before I got the boot I was considering staying and just trying to remember that is was just some venue I was selling on for the time being, not a cult I had signed up for. But my choice was made for me. Truly I am glad I am muted or I would probably be spending alot more time shouting out over there.Today I have finally gotten to where I have checked the "corral" once today to see what was being done to my comrades left behind, but that is it. I am weaning myself off. I was kinda down and lost today, but I'm working on rebuilding slowly. This stinking rain didn't help either.
Get thee behind me, Etsy!
(((Maureen))) I haven't been to the Etsy forums or site in days. For me, that place is toxic. I have been a little lost myself, but it's getting better. I pop in and out of the forums on ArtFire, which takes a little getting used to because of the freedom we have over there. I have found comfort in knowing I'm not alone. I have a lot of work to do on my AF shop and am finally getting ready to take on the task. It's so nice to be able to come back to this blog to touch base!
ReplyDeleteREALLY???stir the pot at Art Fire over two yes count 'em TWO threads about not bringing etsy attitudes to Art Fire makes you want to leave? Go for it..ain't nobody going to beg you to stay...
ReplyDeleteWhat you'll loose?
The best place on the net for selling..up to you..
Um, yeah ok. Nobody said anything here against Artfire. Not sure what you are refering to. We LOVE Artfire.
ReplyDeleteMeh-
Most people on AF are happy to have us there, so please don't worry about the haters!
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