the pineaway

i have been in love with etsy since 2006. in an online world full of ugly, it was a safe haven of visual delight. yesterday the 'new and improved' home page rolled over all my reasons to peruse for pleasure. i never had any use for my activity feed (do i really need to be informed i just favourited something? i know, i did...) and never followed any users, nor do i care to. now that is all i get?

they say it will be a more customized experience, but for me customization means i get a say in what's what, you know, as a customer... now i just feel manipulated and bewildered with the bombardment of haphazard, unpleasant and useless images. call me autistic and oversensitive (for i surely do) but that is a harrowing experience and one i never ever expected from etsy.

from now on i will only shop for what i need, which is not much, because the days of discovering things i never thought to think of in those carefully curated treasuries are over. they were not a 100% to my liking all the time, of course not, but often sparked an interest in something new, prompting a search, sometimes a purchase. most importantly, the landing page was inviting, calm and informative. i don't even know what to call the jumble of a mess i now enter, but it makes me want to leave immediately.

i wanted a shop of my own in there for so long, and was finally able to open one earlier this year, so i'm too invested in starting that out to pack up and leave now, but a big part of me feels like letting my listings just expire while looking for alternative options. as a shopper, they kind of lost me; as a seller i will hang in there and see if things will improve at all with all the disgruntled feedback they are getting.

the spirit of etsy as i have felt it seems to have disappeared with the changes, maybe it has been a long time coming. money talks of course, and the masses have won again. the sense of community is replaced by an empty room full of strangers' junk. it's a profound loss for me and many like-minded etsians, but it might be a good thing... more time offline maybe, less money spent? i'm just afraid it will be less money earned as well.

as a bonus bummer, the new firefox update replaced my custom web font with regular ugly, so now i feel doubly cheated and cranky every time i use the internet.