Ebb and flow. . .

There is that line in The Wizard of Oz something to the effect of "My! people come and go so quickly here."  

Well that is super true for shops on Etsy.  I track the number of shops and although I know it's a bogus number and no longer "active" shops I still record it every day.  What I have observed is that the number goes up nearly every day usually it goes up 1 to 2 Thousand.  😯  Yeah think about for a few minutes, every 24 hours or so thousands of new shops, every bloody day. 😵  I find it totally crazy and bit unbelievable to be perfectly honest. 

Recent data :

2,981,711 shops found for 12/23/2019
2,982,754 shops found for 12/24/2019
2,983,621 shops found for 12/25/2019
2,984,771 shops found for 12/26/2019
2,986,107 shops found for 12/27/2019
2,987,763 shops found for 12/28/2019
2,989,461 shops found for 12/29/2019
2,991,461 shops found for 12/30/2019
2,993,127 shops found for 12/31/2019
2,995,671 shops found for  1/01/2020
2,997,061 shops found for  1/02/2020
2,999,082 shops found for  1/03/2020
3,001,046 shops found for  1/04/2020
3,003,213 shops found for  1/05/2020
3,005,961 shops found for  1/06/2020

2,984,313 shops found for  1/07/2020

And then suddenly BAM!! -21,648 overnight. 😟  Now there are lots of explanations for why shops close, it could be people who started a shop and just got discouraged or realized just how much work it is and quit on their own, although with that large of a drop all at once, I doubt that.  It could be the results of an infringement sweep which with that volume would make sense.  It could be shops etsy closed for other violations like not really being handmade and/or not following all the rules but again the large volume all at once makes that questionable.  However, it could also be massive closures due to the new ODR and it's incredibly bogus and unfair nature.  😕  There is no real way to tell.