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Black-and-white Capital's press releasing calling for changes at Etsy is at http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/black-and-white-Capital-Call

Black-and-white Capital's press releasing calling for changes at Etsy is at http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/black-and-white-Capital-Calls-Change-Etsy http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170502005999/en/blac... 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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  Excellent point. In fact, that's the sort of short-term thinking that would elicit a scolding from Milton Friedman's ghost.

macNchz 9y ago

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 9y ago
Excellent point. In fact, that's the sort of short-term thinking that would elicit a scolding from Milton Friedman's ghost.