
Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company - marvinpinto
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-18/the-barbarians-are-at-etsy-s-hand-hewn-responsibly-sourced-gates
======
cowpewter
Etsy first started losing their appeal when they gave up even pretending to
not allow Alibaba resellers, and lost the "hand-made" distinction that made
their site unique.

Currently they're going through a round of "let's alienate all the small
unique sellers that are still using our service" by changing their payment
policies. Sellers are being required to accept Etsy's payment processing,
where before accepting Paypal was sufficient. Signing up for Etsy's payment
processing requires giving Etsy a whole bunch of private information that a
lot of sellers (at least in the internet circles I run in) are not comfortable
giving out to Etsy, especially sellers that do not live in the US.

Etsy is quickly losing the sellers that make their site worth visiting to
Storenvy.

~~~
chiph
I had a look at Storenvy's store owner's agreement. There's several exclusions
in there that would be problematic, such as:

> Any product containing any hazardous or dangerous material including mercury
> or any product whose use is regulated by any law in any jurisdiction.

I get what they're trying to do, but that's pretty broad

[https://support.storenvy.com/customer/portal/articles/93987-...](https://support.storenvy.com/customer/portal/articles/93987-store-
owner-s-agreement)

~~~
cowpewter
By "internet circles I run in" I'm talking about the ball-jointed doll hobby,
so probably 90% of the products we're talking about are handmade doll clothes
and wigs. The dolls themselves are usually made of polyurethane resin, which I
don't think could be considered harmful once it's cured.

Most of the other hand-crafted things I would consider checking Etsy for first
are things like jewelry and pottery. Unless you're using lead-based glazes, I
think those sellers are all pretty safe going to Storenvy.

I just know that a large percentage of the makers I follow on social media
have been complaining about these new payment policies in the past few weeks,
and many of them have already opened Storenvy shops.

~~~
RugnirViking
> any product whose use is regulated by any law in any jurisdiction.

That doesn't mean say product which is banned in your jurisdiction.

It means any product that is regulated (as in, there is any law at all
governing its use) in any jurisdiction.

Like for example plastic is normally pretty harmless, but maybe theres a law
in Portugal saying there can't be a certain amount of plastic in soft drinks
and now its restricted

IANAL but I thought this wording was interesting and took it to its logical
extremes.

~~~
cowpewter
True, the wording is pretty vague. I assume it's a CYA-clause for Storenvy so
they're not liable if someone sells something illegal somewhere. IANAL either
though, so who knows.

It looks like Etsy's policy is a little more explicit about it being the
seller's job to make sure whatever it is is legal wherever it is.

[https://www.etsy.com/legal/prohibited](https://www.etsy.com/legal/prohibited)

> Due to the potential harm caused by hazardous materials, as well as complex
> legal regulations surrounding such materials, including shipping
> restrictions, hazardous materials are prohibited on Etsy

Etsy doesn't define "hazardous materials" in their policy though, just
provides a few examples.

> Our marketplaces provides a direct connection between buyers and sellers
> around the world. If you buy or sell an item from another country, or if you
> enter into a transaction with someone across international borders, you are
> responsible for complying with international trade restrictions, including
> restrictions put into place by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control
> (“OFAC”), regardless of your location.

------
wgyn
> “There is one and only one social responsibility of business,” the economist
> Milton Friedman famously wrote in 1962. And that is “to use its resources
> and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”

It's strange to me that Friedman is viewed (at least by economists and
"business" folk) as a paragon of logical reasoning and empiricism, all the
while his views reek so strongly of ideology. There are tons of reasons why
the quoted statement might be false whether you're a policy maker (negative
externalities) or even the most cold-hearted capitalist (short-term
incentives).

Perhaps relatedly, it's actually not true that corporate responsibility to
profit is codified in the law. See e.g.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlensky_v._Wrigley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlensky_v._Wrigley)
(discussed further in [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shareholder-Value-Myth-
Shareholders...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders-
Corporations/dp/1605098132))

~~~
valuearb
Friedman is of course right, whether lawmakers and jurists have tried to
codify rules allowing directors to betray shareholder interests.

A single business is not responsible for externalities, any more than a single
citizen is. We are ALL responsible for negative externalities like pollution
and have to solve those problems together, using the political process and
sharing the costs among everyone.

And his statement isn't specific to the short term. Increasing profits is
maximizing total profits. Making of ton of profits today and none thereafter
is in no way as good as making a ton more profits over time.

Imagine you can invest your life savings of $100,000 and a lot of sweat equity
to build a business (including the opportunity cost of giving up your $100k a
year job). You estimate it will fail half the time and you will lose your life
savings. But the other half of the time you estimate will make $500k a year in
profit, after paying all employee compensation, taxes and other costs.

Then you are told that if you succeed, you can't have the $500k a year. That
half of that has to go to the employees who risked nothing and got market
wages from you for helping build the business (and quit whenever they pleased
for better compensation elsewhere). And another half has to go to the
"community" to help support the arts, or some other noble cause that did
nothing to help you start or grow your business.

You still want to risk your life savings?

Companies are owned by shareholders. Property rights are one of the most
fundamental liberties we have. I don't go into your house and raid your fridge
whenever I feel like it. Why should you be able to go into my business and
tell me how I need to spend my money?

~~~
ryanbrunner
You're correct that ultimately, at the end of the day, the shareholders are
the owners of the business, and should have ultimate control over how their
resources are allocated or spent. That doesn't mean that the shareholders
interests are necessarily for profit above all else. If your shareholders were
perfectly happy with being ecologically conscious and providing an above-
average place of business for employees irrespective of profit, wouldn't
demanding focus on profit above all else be working against the shareholder's
interests?

I think this is especially true in the case of Etsy, which as the article
points out, is registered as a B corporation and so arguably has agreement
from the shareholders that benefiting society is part of the mandate of the
company.

~~~
valuearb
If you are a shareholder and want to spend some of your profits on
ecologically conscious activities, no one can stop you. But that doesn't mean
you should force the other shareholders to do the same.

And Etsy isn't a B corporation. It's CEO tried to make it one and failed.

~~~
ryanbrunner
Etsy is currently a B corporation. They're likely to not remain one. The
article clearly points this out, but it's easily verifiable as well:

\-
[https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy](https://www.bcorporation.net/community/etsy)

\- [https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-
corporation...](https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/etsy-joins-the-b-corporation-
movement/)

\- [https://www.etsy.com/ca/mission](https://www.etsy.com/ca/mission)

~~~
valuearb
It's a process the CEO tried to start, never became binding because they are
incorporated in Delaware which doesn't recognize B corps, and can't finish
because he doesn't have buy-in from the owners of the company.

So it's temporary status doesn't belie the fact it's not going to be one and
shouldn't be treated as one.

~~~
dublinben
Delaware absolutely does incorporate Public Benefit Corporations. Kickstarter
is one example.

~~~
harlanlewis
This is _way_ outside of my expertise or experience, but this thread got me
curious.

Here's what 3 minutes of googling indicates:

* most states have b corps * most states that have b corps based them on the Model Benefit Act, drafted by B-Lab * Delaware has b corps, but they are not based on the Model Benefit Act * whether the Model Benefit Act was used affects all sorts of things (requirements, reporting, standards, decision makers, enforcement…)

So it seems fair to say that delaware has b corps, but they are not like the
others.

------
shawnbaden
This applies to any job: work where what you do is the core discipline. At a
law firm, be a lawyer. At a medical practice, be a doctor. As a software
engineer, work at a company where software is the product. Don’t write
software at an insurance company and expect job satisfaction. At such
companies software engineers are seen as replaceable.

Another option: work where what you do is largely represented by upper
management. They make the decisions and if they worked in your discipline they
will empathize with you, defend you, and promote you.

~~~
valuearb
I up-voted you because there is a lot of truth to what you wrote. But you also
have to realize that today many businesses that don't understand how to
develop software but still need to have effective software development
processes. That's a huge personal opportunity if you are an effective
communicator who can emphasize with managers from disparate backgrounds. They
need someone who not only can implement and manage a successful software
development process, but communicate to them what is possible, what is risky,
and what the best trade-offs there are to develop software to meet the
company's goals.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
That's very true but it's not much fun.

~~~
gedrap
Define fun. If rewarded, taking a team with shitty development processes, poor
software, etc and taking it to the next level can be a great fun. But only if
it is reward, i.e. is considered valuable.

------
jly
They made a deal with the devil (went public) that made many of the employees
and shareholders wealthy, and now the price is being paid. The rules have
changed and the primary goal now is maximum profit above everything else, no
matter how many speeches about "social responsibility" they may deliver
internally or externally. The opening quote by Friedman tells you everything
you need to know.

~~~
jartelt
They agreed to pursue profits back in 2006 when they raised a Series A and
then affirmed this when they raised Series B, C, D, E, and F rounds. It's
unfair to pin this on going public. Profit and growth has been the name of the
game since they first raised outside capital from VCs. If employees didn't
want to be part of capitalism, they probably should have picked a non-profit
or a private company that didn't raise >$100M in VC funding.

------
skizm
Opportunities created by Etsy's shortcomings:

1) Create an Etsy review site/blog/mailing list that points to the "good"
merchants.

2) IndieHackers for Etsy. Do some interviews with legit Etsy owners who sell
quality stuff and make a living on Etsy.

3) Independent review company that rates etsy sellers.

4) Hard mode: compete directly with Etsy and have some sort of verification
process that you're not drop-shipping crap from China.

~~~
sbov
All but number 4 is completely reliant upon Etsy not getting their act
together.

I would say the safest is actually #4 without taking VC or going public. Etsy
already validated the hand crafted market, but imho it isn't a devour the
world market. The desire for ever expanding growth has increasingly forced
Etsy to effectively abandon this market, leaving a hole for you to step into.

~~~
skizm
I did say opportunity not viable long term businesses :)

------
etsythrowaway
As someone who has been here for >= 6 months, I welcome this change. There's
an incredible amount of bloat here, including the datacenter we run to the
managers we have. I'm hoping these top level changes can help bring a more
accountable culture. Btw, people make fun of #blameless internally now because
it literally means you can be sloppy and get away with it.

------
sciurus
Black-and-white Capital's press releasing calling for changes at Etsy is at
[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/blac...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/black-
and-white-Capital-Calls-Change-Etsy)

To me it's fascinating how deep in the technical weeds it is. For example,
suggesting changes to their search ranking algorithms.

Some of it strikes me as likely inaccurate. E.G.

"It is black-and-white’s understanding that more than 50% of the approximately
450 people on the R&D team focus on maintaining the Company’s costly internal
infrastructure. A shift to the public cloud would provide long-term cost
savings while also establishing a more flexible infrastructure to support
future growth."

I doubt that Etsy can significantly reduce headcount by moving their servers
from on-prem to public cloud.

~~~
macNchz
This is kind of interesting:

>It is black-and-white’s understanding that Etsy’s current search algorithm is
scored to favor new sellers and other factors instead of trying to deliver the
listings that are most likely to convert, leaving its marketplace drastically
under-monetized. This is in stark contrast to other comparable online
marketplace practices.

There's a delicate balance to be struck on a platform like Etsy between
highlighting new sellers and concentrating sales into a smaller number of high
volume sellers.

Etsy surely has a very long tail of inexperienced new sellers. Some will
blossom into successful online businesses and some will falter and drop off,
but the first step of that process is to get them hooked on the platform. An
early sale goes a long way towards encouraging new people to keep working on
their products.

Rejiggering their search algorithm to bury new sellers underneath all the
existing, high-converting popular products feels like something that will
slowly have negative long term effects on the breadth of their seller base and
the kinds of products that you might find.

~~~
GCA10
Excellent point. In fact, that's the sort of short-term thinking that would
elicit a scolding from Milton Friedman's ghost.

------
dkarapetyan
I've lost count now of how many companies have started unconventional and then
migrated to just being another regular old corporation with all the usual
corporate problems.

Investors are regular people and like regular people they like being around
the devil they know vs the one they don't.

~~~
valuearb
A business is always a business.

The profits from it are owed to the owners, not the suppliers, nor the
employees. If you want to do something different with those profits, then you
should not invite other investors in as partners, then use some of their share
of the profits to fund your own CEO cult.

~~~
ferentchak
It gets fuzzy when it comes to B-Corps. "In the United States, a benefit
corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 30 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia[1] that includes positive impact on
society, workers, the community and the environment in addition to profit as
its legally defined goals. Benefit corporations differ from traditional C
corporations in purpose, accountability, and transparency, but not in
taxation. "

When investors put their money into a B-Corp they have decided to invest in a
company that has declared that profit is not their only motive. I was working
for the first B-Corp to become publicly traded. At that point the leadership
was forced to test their idealist goals vs the pressures of forecastable
quarter after quarter growth.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation)

------
bognition
I can't help but think that the buyer appeal just isn't there. Looking back at
the last couple of years I've bought a handful of items off of etsy. Come to
think of it I probably buy more from EBay that from etsy, which is totally
weird because I hate buying things on ebay.

~~~
Zazezizozuzy
My wife sells through Etsy and has been for a while. The biggest transition
she has seen is buyers moving from purchasing items, to making items
themselves. While the larger, successful shops are declining, there has been a
steady increase in small, beginner shops. Based on that, she moved to selling
more patterns and teaching craft workshops. In my opinion, Etsy should harness
that. If they provided a way for crafters to showcase how they make their
products, they could start selling that. It would have several benefits. It
fits a simple subscription/learning model which is very popular right now. It
also encourages the handmade community that they are trying to support.

------
jorblumesea
Completely anecdotal, but I worked for a company that was a vendor to Etsy and
working with them was really difficult due to internal organizational
problems. The teams I interacted with were somewhat dysfunctional, with lots
competing interests and directions. Definitely got the vibe that they didn't
have a good sense of company direction.

My guess is Etsy hit it big on the niche craft market but didn't know where to
go from there.

------
dominotw
Why is ETSY stock soaring? I don't get it. Are they doing something to get rid
of crap on their site?

Edit: sorry, I meant soaring this week.

~~~
goseeastarwar
Soaring is charitable, because it's still under the IPO price, but Wall St is
happy the board fired the founding CEO and CTO.

~~~
pcsanwald
sorry to be pedantic, but Rob Kalin founded Etsy. pretty sure the departing
CEO and CTO weren't founders.

------
Akarnani
There is no logic that justifies attempting to be "not another public company"
if you are a public company.

Laws. Culture. Press. These things stand in the way of trying to be public
while saying you won't act like a public company (by being a b-corp for
example).

Public companies have functionally modular governance, which means if I don't
like you (manager) and your ideas, my friends and I can buy enough governance
units until you have to listen to us. It's not quite that straightforward but
it's pretty much how it works.

In a way, it's similar to venture—you can try to escape the gravity of venture
norms but to do that you need viral + network effect growth.

In the Market, you can try to escape the gravity of public company norms but
to do that you need Amazon level revenue growth and the temerity of Jeff
Bezos. Even then its an outside bet.

Rabois says startups should go public and I suspect his approach to the
problem is he believes (im armchairing here) that the problem of founders
hiding mistakes / making intellectually lazy decisions / not serving the
financial goals / creating weird preference structures trying to raise money
at scale from funds >> public market shareholders killing a geese for next
quarters egg.

------
socrates1998
I thought Etsy already sold out? Everything I hear from people who sell on
there is that it is loaded with Chinese mass produced crap?

I am not sure if people see the contradiction of the platform, create a
massive global online market place for handmade, unique expensive items. I
mean, how could those two things every come into conflict with each other?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It's entirely possible, but I don't think it can be done in a "sell premade
goods" way.

The seller needs to show that their items are unique by making them to order
at a customer's spec. Keep prices down by not starting each item from scratch,
but customizing a base product.

You make rings? Have a bunch of nice rings that you resell. Maybe even import
them from China and sell on your store. But build your reputation by providing
customized versions of those rings. Not by simply printing the buyer's name on
them, but changing the type or number of stones, the metal, thickness, how the
wiring is knotted, etc. Those are all ways to stand out from the high-volume
crap and still keep the price reasonable.

------
oihpojef0jeoih
I'd like to pre-order "Don't' Quit Your Day Job, the Rise & Fall of Etsy" if
someone with inside knowledge is ready to write it.

I'm not an insider by any means but I've heard some fascinating stories over
the years about how the company has coped (and failed to cope) with the
trappings of success.

------
zaptheimpaler
Fascinating - why does a strongly worded letter from a 2% shareholder prompt
layoffs and major changes within hours? Like if the board believes they are
doing OK, or that perhaps it will take a longer time for their current plan to
payoff and reflect in revenues, can they not communicate that and continue? 2%
isn't enough to force any decision.

------
wslh
I am wondering if, indeed, there are only a few real unicorns: Google,
Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. Other companies are having a hard time:
Twitter, Zynga (remember it?), Etsy, etc.

------
tehabe
If you go public, you have to obey to the rules of the market you join. That
why I don't get why some companies even go public.

~~~
loceng
Because they took money from VCs who want an exit.

~~~
tehabe
Well, VC have already the word "capitalists" in their name. They don't care
for anything but the ROI. While a company has to care about its customers too.

~~~
loceng
Indeed, the catch-22 is surviving and moving forward as a company when there
are potentially little sources of revenue; will the service or product exist
at all without VC funding? I don't personally love the idea of feeding into
the VC ecosystem either, it all depends on your position and ability to
leverage though as to whether it will be a more positive situation or not.

------
MichaelGG
Bizarre. I've only tried to use Etsy once, figuring it'd be a great place to
get some sort of unique jewellery as a gift. It's filled with junk, both of
the super-manufactured kind and of the "modern art" kind (someone glues 2
pieces of crap together and wants $500.) I haven't gone back, though I did
enjoy the Regretsy blog while it was up.

>Etsy’s insistence on running its own servers rather than using cloud-based
services and software offered by companies such as Google and Amazon—an
emphasis that was known, under Dickerson, as “code as craft”

That reminds me of the silly StackOverflow "if you are a real
<hacker/programmer/developer/whatever> you must setup your own servers". There
are certain benefits of cloud or not, but this kind of thinking confuses me.
Why stop there? Do they build their own Ethernet cables? Racks? Make their own
distros, compilers, etc.? Build their own network -- after all, your network
is critical in delivering pages to your users, why outsource this to XO and
Cogent and so on?

Edit: Yes, I understand the pricing differences of cloud. So just say "it's
cheaper to run our own stuff", don't pretend its due to some desire for
"craft".

>food scraps were packed onto a Dutch cargo bike, which an “office ecologist”
would pedal several miles to a Brooklyn farm

It's like they want to parody themselves?

>Senior Engineer..."I’m just allergic to capitalism"

But presumably not allergic to using capitalists money to hire people to bike
your leftovers around town.

~~~
lobster_johnson
There's still plenty of incredible hand-made and vintage furniture and
interior design objects on Etsy.

The problem, as ever, is about filtering. For every quality piece there 50
amateurish things cobbled together from steel pipes and reclaimed wood (or
worse: distressed "shabby chic" furniture made to look like something you'd
find in an old B&B on the French Riviera). With all the AI being thrown
around, can't someone build a "tastefulness" filter?

~~~
fdsfsafasfdas
> With all the AI being thrown around, can't someone build a "tastefulness"
> filter?

It turns out taste varies.

~~~
lobster_johnson
I would argue (somewhat tongue in cheek) that people who don't have a taste
[1] don't need a filter. The filter is for people who want to climb above the
trash, not for those who willingly submerge themselves.

[1]
[https://www.etsy.com/shop/GrainyDayCreations](https://www.etsy.com/shop/GrainyDayCreations),
[https://www.etsy.com/shop/PurpleHeartUK](https://www.etsy.com/shop/PurpleHeartUK),
[https://www.etsy.com/shop/BigSwigDesign](https://www.etsy.com/shop/BigSwigDesign),
[https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftyMamaGifts](https://www.etsy.com/shop/CraftyMamaGifts),
etc.

~~~
fdsfsafasfdas
Right. I wouldn't use that; while I can totally understand why you linked the
shops you did, they also aren't qualitatively much different than the shops I
do appreciate. So I'd rather not automate away my taste until, you know, it's
_my_ taste.

------
Exuma
The entitled employee comments at the bottom made me literally groan. Everyone
bemoaning facts of life, it's not like what they did was a surprise or unjust.
If your job title is "Senior internal paper waste management analysis
director" then you shouldn't be surprised when you get canned.

~~~
CPLX
I've seen the work entitled applied to employees many times, but never to an
investor. Curious, that.

~~~
exolymph
Because investors are entitled in a literal sense, not a figurative one.

------
gotthemwmds
Etsy anecdote from someone generally outside of their main market:

I have ordered something off of Etsy 3 times. 2 of those times, there was a
minor "customer service" level issue. Once, I accidentally put in the wrong
zip code and, after the package was returned to the seller, I was refused any
refund (it was "my fault" \-- too bad). Another time, I was shipped the wrong
item and the back-and-forth between the seller to replace the item ended up
taking more time than I was willing to spend on said $15 item and I gave up.

In the first case, I did reach out to Etsy, and was told to resolve the issue
with the seller. After much back-and-forth, with the seller insisting it was
my fault for typoing the zip code and there was nothing they could do short of
re-ordering (and re-paying) entirely, I ended up convincing them to let me
directly Paypal them shipping costs for the second attempt at shipping, which
went fine.

This process took entirely too much time (especially when one thinks of
experiences with Amazon -- where they resend stuff in orders-gone-awry right
away, without any question, or significant delay).

My main impression of Etsy is: there are some cool items in its unique/niche
marketplace and I would like to buy stuff off of Etsy more often in general,
but the site is largely irrelevant to me as a "place to shop" because of the
lack of an empowered Etsy customer service level between the buyer and seller
-- protecting and advocating for both parties. Of course, not all sellers are
at fault here, and I'm sure many Etsy sellers (probably the majority?)
facilitate minor order issues brilliantly. This is just my personal
experience.

I would feel a lot better about Etsy if I knew I had someone with the power
(at Etsy) to help when something unexpectedly went wrong with an order,
regardless of where the fault lies. I kind of felt like it was a cop-out by
Etsy to place all customer service expectations on the buyer and seller
directly.

Anyway, I like the concept of Etsy a lot (I helped my 67 year old mother open
an account to sell her embroidery!), but I can't spend 10+ emails worth of
time over 2 weeks trying to fix minor order issues, which, in my personal
anecdotal experience, has been the case exactly 66.6% of the time.

If Etsy promoted a strong customer-positive service vibe -- as the empowered
middle-person between the seller/maker and buyer -- I'd feel a lot better
about trying again to buy stuff via it.

And this isn't an entirely buyer-sided argument. I would hope that Etsy sees
customer service as a boon to both seller and buyer, and would make life easy
on the seller as well as the buyer when these small "consumer snafus" show up.
For example, not wasting the sellers time, or charging them fees, or being
stingy about refunding fees, when minor things like this happen. It seems
self-evident that a protected seller -- one who doesn't have to worry about
Etsy putting them through the ringer over a minor order mistake -- would make
a happier seller. Which seems like it would naturally trickle down to happier
buyers as well.

------
ClearAsMud
To bad they don't sell hand made, home grown artist stuff anymore. The Chinese
knock-off Gucci "authentic" syndication machine took over under many names /
masks / illusions. It's more the Walmart Hobby Lobby .. where it all looks
good on the way or on your back (shirt/whatever) .. it's still most likely
made in China. #fact. The revenue is more about the fees and clear profit
machine that is required to run a profitable business on their side. The
problem? The sellers - the "real" ones like myself and my wife. We sell
authenticate stuff with pottery and photography made locally here in Buffalo.
However, I find more and more #buffalo search related material are major hub
outlets of people I don't know. I've been doing this for almost 7 years now -
I know people here and the artists specifically OF Buffalo. It's the trend
that then started to go up in margin % and no return. Only recently have I
seen an overhaul to the interface for the Store, but it runs like a sweatshop
with minimal tools that any of us were accustomed to online. I wish it was
better, but we are leaving and concentrating on real world sales.

~~~
dimaggiosghost
Personally, if the goods quality is high, I don't think the designers or
Brandee's ought to capture the majority of the value.

The "credit" (my money) goes to the people that made and got the product to
me.

I think the appropriate level of discussion is "at what level is art
conodditised" to which I would say "I have no idea, but somewhere before it's
printed on clothing and sold to me".

Other people who value different aspects of fashion are likely to disagree,
but in general I don't highly value the creativity in clothing

------
ClearAsMud
Second constructive comment I hope - but welcome to the online Strip Mall 2.0

------
SomeStupidPoint
The focus on eternally positive second derivatives is the cancer of American
capitalism.

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binarymax
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, since you have an interesting opinion, but in
this case Etsy decided to play the game. They could have stayed private and
done whatever they wanted without worrying about 'shareholder value'. They
chose to IPO, they are now owned by the market. If you can't play the
shareholder game then don't go public.

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SomeStupidPoint
Destroying a profitable, growing or mature company in pursuit of greater
second derivatives isn't pro-shareholder -- it's pro a particular kind of
investment strategy which views returns through a particular lens. I believe
it's deeply myopic.

It's a Wall St myth that quarterly returns are the best thing to optimize for
generating shareholder value or that executives are obligated to do so.

It's the kind of capitalism that tells you the most efficient way to heat your
house is to set it on fire.

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valuearb
If that profitable growing company constantly takes millions of dollars out of
it's accounts and sets them afire, stopping it from doing so isn't going
"destroy it".

And it's not a wall street myth that quarterly returns are the best thing,
more a CNN/Stock Trader myth. There are a huge number of investors like Warren
Buffett who know that is entirely wrong.

But it's a common misconception that cutting spending is bad for business. In
this case they are cutting a deluded CEO who had his own personality cult and
a massive team of paid cheerleaders. Overpaying employees isn't "investing",
paying closer to market isn't going to hurt the business. On the contrary, it
can focus it and unleash greater growth.

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple he cut the Newton, dozens of Mac hardware
projects, and almost all advanced R&D. He focused the Mac team on four market
segments and only four computers. He focused remaining research on areas that
could lead to products they understood, mainly touchpads. It took them nearly
10 years of careful iteration, (they designed the iPad first and Steve refused
to launch it) before they built the iPhone.

But if Steve hadn't focused on getting Apple's quarterly burn down, they never
would have made it. If he hadn't focused their efforts, they likely never
would have made great products. If he had thrown money at every half baked
idea, they would have died.

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FussyZeus
> A similar model had worked spectacularly well for EBay Inc., which had made
> money for 21 straight years...How, Wunder asked, was Etsy not making more
> money?

Because EBAY was already in that market! It's really no wonder Etsy has tanked
as a community, sellers fleeing in droves, as the company works hard to
destroy what it was, something unique, successful (even if it wasn't eating
the world) and highly responsive to user's needs, into YET ANOTHER EBAY CLONE
full of sweatshop manufactured crap.

Hooray for Capitalism! Race to the bottom!

/rant

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zzleeper
At the same time,

> Sellers who developed successful products were prohibited by Etsy policy
> from hiring employees to help them expand

Isn't that cruel? Your XYZ craft is amazing and people love it, but you can
hire someone to help you make more. Then, the demand is just absorbed by
copycats.

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lmm
> Isn't that cruel? Your XYZ craft is amazing and people love it, but you can
> hire someone to help you make more.

Not at all, that's inherent to the whole idea of handmade. Your product
probably won't be the same if you get someone helping you with it; certainly
the handmadiness that people are paying you for won't be there any more. If
your product is good enough to stand on its own merits then you can sell it
conventionally.

> Then, the demand is just absorbed by copycats.

Any copycat presumably has to stand on their own and earn their own
reputation. If you've got positive reviews for the product you handmade, that
shouldn't transfer over to someone else making it, even if that someone else
is employed by you.

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DamnYuppie
I don't consider being handmade to mean being personally created by the
inventory only. If you hire others who are skilled in the crafts required to
create your product then I have no qualms still considering the item to be
hand crafted. Many of the outdoor items I purchase are hand made by small
companies, I am not sure it matters who in the company makes it as long as the
quality and service remain high.

