For the record: poll results

Will you use the new refferal thingie?

Fuck no. Who asked for it anyway? -- 93 (80%)

Probaby not. Not sure why we need it. -- 17 (14%)

I think it's a brilliant idea! Go Etsy! -- 6 (5%)

Spamferral: Tastes Like Ass

etsybiatch@gmail.com

Come check out Etsy.com!

Hi!

I'd like to invite you to check out a great hilarious website that I know about called Etsy (http://www.etsy.com). Etsy is an online marketplace hot mess for buying and selling all things handmade anything you can get away with. You'll find an creative fed-up community of independent artists and designers and the very best in totally random handmade goods, craft supplies and vintage. It's an excellent place to find one of a kind resold, copied and trademark-infringing items, to give as gifts - or as gifts for yourself! Since you're buying directly in a ridiculously unclear process from artists on Etsy, you have the special opportunity certainty to form personal connections with confuse and exasperate the people who create your treasures. Signing up is free and easy one thing but if you want to sell I hope you like crappy customer service, amateurish tutorials, empty fluff masquerading as communication, general aggravation and intense disillusionment!

Just click here:

http://www.etsy.com/register.php?referral=fail

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Of all the crap-ass fuckery clogging up the Etsy pipeline these days, this one takes the cupcake. It appears that not only is $27 million not enough to buy real advertising, it's not even enough to buy a clue. Shall we count the many ways in which this concept is overflowing with fail?

1. Nobody asked for this.

2. Developing this took time and manpower away from developing the things people actually asked for, want and need.

3. It's prefab, generic and mass-produced, everything Etsy is not supposed to be.

4. It's only half-finished (and half-assed) as the referral/credit program hasn't even been built yet.

5. Not all Etsy members are eligible for "prizes", so international sellers get the shaft yet again.

6. It advertises Etsy the site over the individual seller's store, so that Etsy profits from the efforts of an individual seller rather than the seller themselves.

7. It's undeniably spam, which Etsy claims to be so against that it refuses to email members about changes to the site on the basis that it might be considered spam.

And lastly, it's fucking lazy. Sellers already promote Etsy, flag resellers, report forum problems, research bugs, make treasuries, write Storque articles, and provide endless amounts of assistance to each other in the forums. Now they are asked to "help" Etsy by sending everyone they know a generic, impersonal piece of spam in order to get more competitors - whoops, I mean, customers - to sign up on the site in return for vaguely described "credits" that will go towards an undefined "prize" which they may not be eligible for and may never actually arrive. How many more features will be rolled out unfinished and untested, and how many more times will sellers be asked to do that jobs that Etsy's employees are supposed to be doing? Although we really gotta give a hand to admin for combining the two into one this time. Someone over there has a talent for efficient idiocy.

Your sellers are stubborn, Etsy, but they are not mules. Take that heavy load off their backs and quit dangling that stunted, undersized carrot in front of their noses. You're making an ass of yourself.