On Platforms and Vulnerability

Like many of you, I was completely caught off guard by the recent changes to instagram’s user experience. And I now find myself in a predicament, where the two platforms I relied on most (instagram and ravelry) are virtually unusable to me.

I am trying to asses the situation, to think logically. And part of that process, for me, is accepting some responsibility. Admittedly, I was aware that a change like this was due to happen eventually; instagram announced it - albeit rather vaguely - last year. And in the back of my mind, I made a note that - between this and the ravelry situation - I absolutely needed to start thinking about transitioning to my own independent platform. But of course life happens, with its various setbacks. And it was easier to just stay with what was familiar.

And therein lies the problem. Doing nothing does not protect us from change. There are far worse examples of this historically than what I am describing here. But as humans we tend not to learn from historical examples, and to instead repeat the same self-jeopardising patterns of behaviour.

I am not immune to this folly. I am a self-employed artisan, who built their business through an over-reliance on virtual mega-platforms over which I have no control. This was an error in judgment, and it was one I made so early on, that my entire business model is entrenched in it. I do not, at the moment, have an effective means of earning an income independently of ravelry, and I do not have an effective means of connecting with an audience independently of instagram. Having made myself vulnerable in this manner, I essentially have no choice but to continue using these systems - even if I find them detrimental - whilst I scramble to develop an effective independent space.

Will I succeed in the latter? At this stage, I honestly do not know. Because what I need to do is, take time off from the things that earn me an income in the short-term, in order to secure the ability to earn an income in the long-term. But realistically speaking, I cannot afford to take that time. And neither can I afford to hire professional help. So it’s a Catch 22 type situation, and I have not yet found a way out of it.

I am writing this not because I have a solution, but precisely because I don’t. Somehow I feel it is important to acknowledge being in this situation. Because as a pattern designer, I find that I am sometimes viewed as an Enterprise, as someone who Knows Stuff and has Got It Together. And neither of these things are so. Like most of us, I am often stumbling in the dark.

Before there can be a light at the end of the tunnel, I need to find the proverbial tunnel. And that is the stage I am currently on. Wish me luck, and I wish you the same!