Quote:
Originally Posted by travrosty
And thats the biggest problem i think we have as a hobby, the apathy.
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See, I worked at Topps for two years. It is a very poorly run company where one hand doesn't know what the other 33 are doing. It was also a pretty hectic job with lots of deadlines. But that didn't really bother me because it was just baseball cards, which is something I used to tell myself if I found stress creeping in at the job, "It's just baseball cards." I wasn't curing cancer, but I wasn't causing it, either. Can you see my point?
Now, when I go on other hobby websites that are more focused on modern baseball cards, there are arguments happening that shadow those here about the TPAs, but they are about Topps. Topps doesn't care about us, they are ruining the hobby, etc. You know where I side on those? It's just baseball cards. If you don't like what Topps is doing, don't patronize them, and if it is causing anger and higher blood pressure, than perhaps painting or birdwatching (or better yet, vintage!) might be a better hobby. But I can promise you that there is no evil plot or fraudulant behavior going on at Topps, just a group of jabronis at a poorly run company struggling to get a product on the street. It's just baseball cards.
I feel the same way about TPAs. I like autograph collecting. I have been doing it for 20+ years. The hobby had problems before the TPAs came along, and it will have problems when they fail. But when it comes to the opinions of these self-proclaimed experts, I can use or ignore them, which is more and more becoming the latter. You can call this apathy. I call it enjoyment and staying sane. It's just scribbles on paper.
Granted, I don't make my livlihood from autos, like some around here do, but maybe this will help you better understand my position on the topic.