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Etsy should come with a Surgeon General warning.
Not the cute kind on candy cigarettes.
I mean a real, flashing, “you’re about to get financially suplexed by a pastel-colored platform that calls you ‘partner’ while siphoning your lunch money.”
New sellers log in all excited, upload their first product, and Etsy just silently stares at them like:
“Adorable. Anyway, here are the fees.”
Listing fees. Transaction fees. Offsite ads you can’t escape. And the existential fee of realizing you’re competing with 1.8 million people selling the exact same beige printable.
Etsy isn’t a marketplace. It’s a claw machine run by an MBA who thinks community means “emoji-filled emails explaining why your fees went up again.”
If Etsy truly cared, the first popup would say:
“Hey champ, we’re about to charge you before you make a single dollar. Proceed?”
But no.
They let you walk straight into the wood chipper with confidence and a color palette.
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⚡ WATCH THIS HACK - How to Colorize Black & White Photos in Affinity Photo 3
This newest YouTube tutorial is basically a cheat code for making old photos look like they didn’t come out of a haunted attic.
Here’s the quick version — the one people will actually read:
🔥 The Hack: Let Affinity’s ML do the work, then fix what the robot screws up.
📌 What you’ll learn in the video:
How to use Affinity Photo 3’s Colorize feature (the button that turns grayscale sadness into full-color nostalgia)
How to activate the required ML model Yes, you literally have to turn on the brain inside Affinity or it just sits there like an unplugged air fryer.
How to apply natural color to old black & white photos AKA “How to stop Grandma from looking like an orange alien.”
How to enhance your restored photo with Affinity tools Because the ML model will try, but it will also make questionable choices.
How to get realistic tones with minimal adjustments No 87-layer correction stack, no crying, no “why is the baby’s skin green?”
The Etsy Reality Check Nobody Gives You Until It’s Too Late
Consider this your battlefield memo from the trenches of digital commerce.
If you’re selling on Etsy, here’s the truth:
Etsy is a profit machine disguised as a craft fair. It monetizes hope.
It markets handmade dreams, then hands you an invoice before you’ve sold your first line-art flower bundle.
And yes, saturation is real.
No, your shop didn’t flop because the algorithm hates you.
It flopped because Etsy’s economy runs on churn: new sellers cycle in, Etsy collects fees, most sellers quit, repeat forever.
It’s not evil, it’s business. But it sure feels personal when your dashboard looks like a flatline.
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The Strange Economics of Platform Honesty
Let’s zoom out: why don’t platforms warn beginners?
Because honesty kills profit.
Fast-food chains use yellow and red because it hijacks your hunger. Social apps use infinite scroll because it hijacks your boredom.
Soda companies built empires convincing people their brown sugar water is basically a wellness beverage.
And Etsy? Etsy hijacks your hope.
The entire modern internet runs on removing friction, even when friction is the thing that protects you.
One of the texts you shared breaks this down perfectly: tech makes our worst impulses effortless, and that “effortless” becomes dangerous faster than we realize.
A platform will always choose maximize user belief over display hard truths.
That’s why Etsy’s onboarding says:
“Welcome, creative soul!”
Not:
“Your niche is oversaturated and 76% of new sellers quit in six months.”
🤯 Wait, What?!
People spent more on AI girlfriends last year than on Adobe Photoshop subscriptions.
If that doesn't tell you everything about the state of digital commerce, nothing will.
Have a productive day,
Miroslav from The Design Nexus
TOOLS YOU SHOULD TRY
Even if you sell products other than mugs or t-shirts, it doesn't mean it will cost you more.
There are tools that can help you with the tasks, and most of them have free versions.
Research: ProfitTree
Graphic Designs: Creative Fabrica
Vectorizing: Vectorizer AI
POD Fulfillment: Printify
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