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Yes, but the interesting question I think is why the bean counters are given free reign to make decisions that ultimately lead to the company's downfall[0]. Li

by alecbz 5y ago

Yes, but the interesting question I think is why the bean counters are given free reign to make decisions that ultimately lead to the company's downfall[0]. Like what if you had a fine dining restaurant where things are going okay, and someone comes in and is like "Hey guys, I noticed we're spending a lot of time washing plates. We'd be able to serve X% more customers if we just like scraped off the food and did a quick rinse." The restaurant tries it, it works for a bit until diners see specs of old food on their plates, the restaurant's reputation tanks, they lose all their customers, and they go out of business. I think most restaurants are structured such that this does not happen. The restaurants correctly see that even though it seems like doing this might make some graphs go up in the short-term, it will actually make everything terrible in the long-term, and so they don't do it. And again, this isn't about like, benevolent restaurant owners valuing the custom experience even if it's bad for the bottom line. Washing the plates thoroughly is good for the bottom line; any sufficiently intelligent restaurant owner shouldn't listen to the bean counter even if the owner's just a greedy capitalist. (This reads enough like a Scott Alexander post that I'm pretty sure I might just actually be copying one; I think he wrote something along these lines once.) [0]: Again, all of this is precipitated on the idea that actually Etsy will fail once it loses its niche, since it'll just get beaten by Amazon/eBay/etc. when it's just like any other seller of goods. If what's really going to happen is that Etsy will do fine as a company, then this becomes a totally different shape of problem: "the market rewards things that we actually maybe don't want for society".

dylan604 5y ago
Did Amazon fail when it opened the flood gates to the mass market? Did eBay? Did Walmart? No. I don't accept your premise that a company switching from handmade to low price mass produced will fail. Fail means different things to different people, but to the stockholders that the bean counters are beholden to determine fail/success by stock price and profits. What definition the original users of the site expecting handmade/small batch type of items have of fail/success means nothing to those in charge. It's not really a hard subject to understand is it? You have to accept that the "leadership" of Etsy is different now than when it was created. Their ethos has changed. It happens. You are the one that is having problems accepting it, but it will not change reality. People still use Google now that "don't be evil" is no longer their ethos.
- alecbz 5y ago
  > Did Amazon fail when it opened the flood gates to the mass market? Did eBay? Did Walmart? No. If Etsy can fit in just becoming another giant generic undifferentiated seller of things, then yeah, this all checks out.[0] But my question is how much room the market has for those kinds of businesses. If Etsy does become just another big generic seller of things, why keep using them over Amazon, eBay, or Walmart? What are they going to compete with them on? It's true Amazon used to be more niche (books), but I think they were early enough that they didn't have to worry too much about someone crushing them. Walmart was always a giant seller of things, just a physical one that went online, but I don't think they were ever really niche. Did eBay have a niche? I thought they were also pretty much just selling generic stuff from the beginning. [0]: > You are the one that is having problems accepting it, but it will not change reality. I think you're confusing not thinking this is likely with some kind of denialism/not wanting it to be true. I don't especially care a whole lot if Etsy ends up being a giant generic seller of things, I'm just not sure that'll work. At the point where Etsy is just re-skinned Amazon, what stops Amazon from crushing them?

by alecbz 5y ago

dylan604 5y ago

Did Amazon fail when it opened the flood gates to the mass market? Did eBay? Did Walmart? No. I don't accept your premise that a company switching from handmade to low price mass produced will fail. Fail means different things to different people, but to the stockholders that the bean counters are beholden to determine fail/success by stock price and profits. What definition the original users of the site expecting handmade/small batch type of items have of fail/success means nothing to those in charge. It's not really a hard subject to understand is it? You have to accept that the "leadership" of Etsy is different now than when it was created. Their ethos has changed. It happens. You are the one that is having problems accepting it, but it will not change reality. People still use Google now that "don't be evil" is no longer their ethos.

alecbz 5y ago
> Did Amazon fail when it opened the flood gates to the mass market? Did eBay? Did Walmart? No. If Etsy can fit in just becoming another giant generic undifferentiated seller of things, then yeah, this all checks out.[0] But my question is how much room the market has for those kinds of businesses. If Etsy does become just another big generic seller of things, why keep using them over Amazon, eBay, or Walmart? What are they going to compete with them on? It's true Amazon used to be more niche (books), but I think they were early enough that they didn't have to worry too much about someone crushing them. Walmart was always a giant seller of things, just a physical one that went online, but I don't think they were ever really niche. Did eBay have a niche? I thought they were also pretty much just selling generic stuff from the beginning. [0]: > You are the one that is having problems accepting it, but it will not change reality. I think you're confusing not thinking this is likely with some kind of denialism/not wanting it to be true. I don't especially care a whole lot if Etsy ends up being a giant generic seller of things, I'm just not sure that'll work. At the point where Etsy is just re-skinned Amazon, what stops Amazon from crushing them?