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Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

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Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#21

Post by DamnYuppie »

lmm wrote: post #19
zzleeper wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 conve…

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.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#22

Post by lightedman »

Exuma wrote: post #16

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.

"The entitled employee comments at the bottom made me literally groan."

What comments? All I see is an eternally-extending page, typical of news sites that tack every story on to the end of the prior one. In fact, when I scroll to the bottom of the story, the URL itself in my URL/search bar changes to match the title of the story.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#23

Post by Exuma »

lightedman wrote: post #22
Exuma wrote: post #16

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.

"The entitled employee comments at the bottom made me literally groan." What comments? All I see is an eternally-extending page, typical of news sites that tack every story on to the end of the prior one. In fact, when I scroll to the bottom of the story, the URL itself in my URL/search bar changes to match the title of the story.

Sorry, I just now realized that. I thought that was the end of the article because I was distracted and saw the big image.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#24

Post by cowpewter »

chiph wrote: post #20
cowpewter wrote: post #15

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 Payp…

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-...

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.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#25

Post by 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 (discussed further in https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders...)

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#26

Post by yeukhon »

cowpewter wrote: post #15

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 Payp…

I have used Storenvy before to buy alpacasso plushes because my then-girlfriend liked them very much and I did too. But those plushes are not made by the sellers, they are just resellers because the plushes are only available in Japan. But the sellers I had business with often gave gifts and handwritten card/letter to thank me for the business. This is an important thing to note when comparing the products being sold on either site.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#27

Post by 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 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.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#28

Post by pjc50 »

wgyn wrote: post #25

> “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…

> paragon of logical reasoning and empiricism, all the while his views reek so strongly of ideology

Motivated reasoning is a very powerful force. Of course people with the same ideology are going to hold up someone who supports them as a paragon of reason, and use him as protective camoflage for policies harmful to the rest of us.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#29

Post by 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.

Re: Etsy is under pressure to start acting more like a conventional company

#30

Post by clavalle »

wgyn wrote: post #25

> “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…

It is a beautiful example of dogma. It has some meaning but can be bent and molded to fit almost any argument.

The obvious argument, especially in Etsy's case is 'well, this works for the short term but can mean no profits in the long term as you commoditize your business and what makes a company like Etsy, Etsy fades into market oblivion.'

To which the next statement is 'Oh. Well, Friedman meant all expected profits even into the long term.' which may even be true, but the statement is used to justify all sorts of business behavior that is not in keeping with that idea.

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