Tindie’s new owners, EETree LLC, broke weeks of silence with an announcement that names no one, explains nothing, and leaves sellers still owed money.
Key Takeaways
The new team claims to believe Tindie remains an important platform for makers, hardware creators, engineers, and independent sellers – but provides no acquisition rationale.
The platform was taken offline for an extended period during the ownership transition, with no communicated timeline or migration plan.
The “About us” page contains zero information on the new owners or team.
An AI-generated blog post appeared on the Tindie site under an account attributed to presumably-former staff.
The announcement email itself has a name inconsistency: “EEree LLC” versus “EETree LLC,” which compounds credibility problems.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters traced EETree LLC to a likely shell structure for Chinese firm EETree Info & Tech Limited (eetree.cn), raising questions about payment processing jurisdiction and whether sellers owed money have any realistic path to recovery.
Multiple commenters pointed out that taking a trust-dependent marketplace offline for weeks – with no staging environment, no double-write migration, and no timeline – signals the new team lacks basic marketplace operations experience.
Seller exodus is underway: Lectronz is the most-cited alternative, and at least one commenter confirmed they are already migrating their store.
Notable Comments
@RossBencina: Surfaces a statement from Alexander Rowsell, Tindie’s social media manager and blog editor, with details not present in the official post (expires in one day).
@dbl000: Points to the Adafruit blog for a fuller timeline and background on the acquisition.
