EETree LLC seems to be a shell company owned by EETree Info & Tech Limited in China (https://www.eetree.cn).
I'm not sure what that means as far as payment processing etc, apparently sellers were all cut off with money owing and still have no explanation.
Also the AI-generated blog post on the Tindie site (under the name/account of assumedly-previous staff?), and the post above that says absolutely nothing about what's actually going on...
It looks from the outside like a Chinese tech blog just randomly bought Tindie, broke the site while moving it to their own servers, and now are trying to figure out how to run it?
Personally, I trust EETree LLC, a Washington State company, a digital powerhouse to the information super highway foster technological innovation and progress to digital future bridging to the electronic divide.
In the age of meme stocks, NFTs, vibe coding and orange clowns in the white house, no, it's not obvious. The world has gone right past satire and into a reality of collective delusion.
I can't think of a worse first impression for the new owners of a marketplace that relies on buyer and seller loyalty than taking down the entire platform for weeks without any clear timeline or reasoning.
It also gives the impression that they have no idea how to set up a staging environment or seamlessly migrate to a new backend with a double write approach. Just spells trouble all around.
After much back and forth with the community and the team internally, we can reveal a bit more of what's happening. Tindie transitioned to new ownership on April 14. Due to circumstances beyond the control of the new owners, the site was immediately put into maintenance mode.
Since then, the process of transitioning the site to new infrastructure and upgrading the aging codebase has been ongoing. The intention was, as I originally thought, to do this seamlessly with no downtime. However, once the site was put into maintenance mode and the transition happened. it was decided to take the time to work on the site and get things up to modern standards.
The new owners are genuinely excited about Tindie and what the platform can be. After a year or so on cruise control, we're finally going to make substantial investments in the platform and community -- something which in my humble opinion is long overdue.
# Timeframe
Again, I still don't have an exact timeframe for the completion of this work. I know that is what the community wants to know more than anything, and it's very frustrating that I can't satisfy your answers about that.
I know that the new tech team is working hard with the Supplyframe team to complete all the transition steps and ensure things are done properly.
# Who Am I?
I figured many of you already know me, but my name is Alexander Rowsell. I'm the editor of the Tindie Blog and the social media manager. I've been with Tindie for a few years, and I'll be around for the foreseeable future. I do embedded development work, but I also really enjoy writing about what the community is up to. It's always a blast to go through the newest listings on Tindie to see what people are creating!
I'll be honest with you, I was worried about Tindie over the last few months. I could see that the site needed attention from a professional dev team and was worried the site would break totally before that happened. Well, there has been downtime, but the upside is that the site will be refreshed and ready for the long term. Short-term pain for long-term stability -- that's where we're at.
I wanted to write a longer statement, and seeing as how the Tindie Blog itself is down I figured this was the next best thing. To verify this statement is actually from me, I've signed it with my GPG key - B5CFBEB4EE9FE813. You can verify this signature by getting the raw text of this post, and verifying the signature using GPG.
It's not clear to me WHY it was taken over.. Were there issues with the previous owners?
Also WHO are the new owners? The "About us" page has ZERO info on them. I wouldn't touch the new platform with a 30foot pole, so I guess it's time to find a new alternative marketplace.
> Our team took over Tindie because we believe it remains an important platform for makers, hardware creators, engineers, and independent sellers around the world.
How does this even explain why they "TOOK OVER" Tindie?
The lack of clear communication and transparency around this whole issue has been appaling. I've moved to Lectronz and will wipe out my store on Tindie as soon as they resolve payouts.
>and the migration from the previous operating environment to the new one took longer and caused more disruption than anyone wanted
I mean, this is unacceptable by any metric. Downtime for a platform like this means lost revenue. If Amazon was down for weeks at a time how do you think that would affect them as a retailer? So at this point I can't imagine what the mystery purchasers are getting, certainly not a steady revenue stream? I can't imagine the user data is that valuable for such a niche market focus. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be delighted to observe more embarrassing fumbles from your nameless owners, and whoever you are because I suspect your given name is false as well.
EETree LLC seems to be a shell company owned by EETree Info & Tech Limited in China (https://www.eetree.cn).
I'm not sure what that means as far as payment processing etc, apparently sellers were all cut off with money owing and still have no explanation.
Also the AI-generated blog post on the Tindie site (under the name/account of assumedly-previous staff?), and the post above that says absolutely nothing about what's actually going on...
It looks from the outside like a Chinese tech blog just randomly bought Tindie, broke the site while moving it to their own servers, and now are trying to figure out how to run it?
Personally, I trust EETree LLC, a Washington State company, a digital powerhouse to the information super highway foster technological innovation and progress to digital future bridging to the electronic divide.
Is it not obvious this is satire?
SATIRE DOES NOT COMPUTE
In the age of meme stocks, NFTs, vibe coding and orange clowns in the white house, no, it's not obvious. The world has gone right past satire and into a reality of collective delusion.
It is. How could anyone take “progress to digital future bridging to the electronic divide” seriously?
Not at all
I can't think of a worse first impression for the new owners of a marketplace that relies on buyer and seller loyalty than taking down the entire platform for weeks without any clear timeline or reasoning.
It also gives the impression that they have no idea how to set up a staging environment or seamlessly migrate to a new backend with a double write approach. Just spells trouble all around.
Found this statement from Alexander Rowsell, Tindie social media manager and editor of the Tindie Blog (link expires in one day):
https://privatebin.net/?db6418554d9d5728#3NjbsSUYzw227zG5P1k...
What's with the expiration?
> # Announcement
After much back and forth with the community and the team internally, we can reveal a bit more of what's happening. Tindie transitioned to new ownership on April 14. Due to circumstances beyond the control of the new owners, the site was immediately put into maintenance mode. Since then, the process of transitioning the site to new infrastructure and upgrading the aging codebase has been ongoing. The intention was, as I originally thought, to do this seamlessly with no downtime. However, once the site was put into maintenance mode and the transition happened. it was decided to take the time to work on the site and get things up to modern standards. The new owners are genuinely excited about Tindie and what the platform can be. After a year or so on cruise control, we're finally going to make substantial investments in the platform and community -- something which in my humble opinion is long overdue.
# Timeframe
Again, I still don't have an exact timeframe for the completion of this work. I know that is what the community wants to know more than anything, and it's very frustrating that I can't satisfy your answers about that.
I know that the new tech team is working hard with the Supplyframe team to complete all the transition steps and ensure things are done properly.
# Who Am I?
I figured many of you already know me, but my name is Alexander Rowsell. I'm the editor of the Tindie Blog and the social media manager. I've been with Tindie for a few years, and I'll be around for the foreseeable future. I do embedded development work, but I also really enjoy writing about what the community is up to. It's always a blast to go through the newest listings on Tindie to see what people are creating!
I'll be honest with you, I was worried about Tindie over the last few months. I could see that the site needed attention from a professional dev team and was worried the site would break totally before that happened. Well, there has been downtime, but the upside is that the site will be refreshed and ready for the long term. Short-term pain for long-term stability -- that's where we're at.
I wanted to write a longer statement, and seeing as how the Tindie Blog itself is down I figured this was the next best thing. To verify this statement is actually from me, I've signed it with my GPG key - B5CFBEB4EE9FE813. You can verify this signature by getting the raw text of this post, and verifying the signature using GPG.
It's not clear to me WHY it was taken over.. Were there issues with the previous owners?
Also WHO are the new owners? The "About us" page has ZERO info on them. I wouldn't touch the new platform with a 30foot pole, so I guess it's time to find a new alternative marketplace.
Edit: on https://www.linkedin.com/in/gongyu/ it claims that the company name is "EEree LLC", in the email it's magically "EETree LLC"
Nobody seems to be using the word "bankrupt", but I'm getting the impression that's what happened here? Sudden un-announced sale?
> Our team took over Tindie because we believe it remains an important platform for makers, hardware creators, engineers, and independent sellers around the world.
How does this even explain why they "TOOK OVER" Tindie?
The lack of clear communication and transparency around this whole issue has been appaling. I've moved to Lectronz and will wipe out my store on Tindie as soon as they resolve payouts.
If there were a time to compete, it would be now ;)
https://lectronz.com
This is probably a good reminder that the EU-based alternative https://www.lectronz.com exists!
Scam or spy?
context?
>and the migration from the previous operating environment to the new one took longer and caused more disruption than anyone wanted
I mean, this is unacceptable by any metric. Downtime for a platform like this means lost revenue. If Amazon was down for weeks at a time how do you think that would affect them as a retailer? So at this point I can't imagine what the mystery purchasers are getting, certainly not a steady revenue stream? I can't imagine the user data is that valuable for such a niche market focus. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be delighted to observe more embarrassing fumbles from your nameless owners, and whoever you are because I suspect your given name is false as well.