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No, sellers that refer to themselves as crafters are actually saying exactly the opposite. This business model that allows manufacturing is unfair to them becau

No, sellers that refer to themselves as crafters are actually saying exactly the opposite. This business model that allows manufacturing is unfair to them because they can't compete, essentially. The same way crafters can't compete with manufacturing on any other marketplace. And they are disappointed because Etsy has originally promised to be different. And their problem is not only price competition from chinese trinket sellers, but also visibility. Because manufacturers have many more products, small sellers don't show up in search results any more.

noelwelsh 12y ago
The point I'm trying to make is that the crafter philosophy, on which Etsy is built, is non-sensical. Etsy's old rules keep crafters poor, because they can't harness economies of scale. The new rules put new entrants at a disadvantage. At some point Etsy's policy what that you could outsource work if you worked in the same location (IIRC) which biases the market against third world artisans. Morocco, for instance, is full of people creating beautiful goods in small workshops. Under these rules they couldn't have a US representative sell their goods. The only way I could interpret Etsy's rules was as an elaborate code for "people like us" -- affluent, middle class, first world residents.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  I don't follow you. How is keeping things hand made and priced appropriately nonsensical? What economies of scale even exist when it comes to hand crafting? Also, how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves?
  - noelwelsh 12y ago
    > how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves? I'm basing this on my experience in Morocco in 2004. I doubt the artisans I saw could afford Internet access, or would understand how to work a site like Etsy, or had sufficient written English skills to deal with first world customers. The mail system was notoriously prone to losing packages as well. If they could get a middle man they could access the market, but Etsy's rules forbade this.
    - mcfunley 12y ago
      Etsy didn't exist in 2004. The third world is much more connected now, on mobile phones. You have the old rules more or less correct, but the spirit of them was exactly the opposite. The intention was for Etsy to serve as a (much lower cost) middleman for third world sellers. It is certainly true that Etsy hasn't lived up to its own aspirations here, as yet. There is a backlash against the third world, but it comes from some segments of the existing US seller community. Most of the articles you see complain about "resellers," which is a catch-all term that can be basically code for "this person follows the rules, but is Chinese."
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        >Most of the articles you see complain about "resellers," which is a catch-all term that can be basically code for "this person follows the rules, but is Chinese." Are they actually reselling, though? There's a big gap between dog whistle racism and legitimately not wanting people to sell things they didn't make. The current rules of the site are a separate matter.
        mcfunley 12y ago
        There are of course people who just put up finished goods without modification, and "reseller" is a descriptive term in those cases. That activity violates the terms, so these people eventually get banned. In my experience this is a tiny sliver of the activity that gets described as "reselling." In other cases people assemble items from raw materials (e.g. from Alibaba) in ways that may not strike you as particularly creative, but it's kosher when it comes to the site's rules. American sellers do the same thing and have been since the site's inception. Only the Chinese folks who do it wind up in critical news articles with the "reseller" label, though. If you see sellers described that way and they don't get banned, they have most likely gone through a documentation process whereby they explain their work with dated photos and other materials. Etsy sellers are highly motivated to flag their competition when they think there's a term violation, and real resellers don't last long. Disclaimer - I don't work for Etsy anymore.

noelwelsh 12y ago

The point I'm trying to make is that the crafter philosophy, on which Etsy is built, is non-sensical. Etsy's old rules keep crafters poor, because they can't harness economies of scale. The new rules put new entrants at a disadvantage. At some point Etsy's policy what that you could outsource work if you worked in the same location (IIRC) which biases the market against third world artisans. Morocco, for instance, is full of people creating beautiful goods in small workshops. Under these rules they couldn't have a US representative sell their goods. The only way I could interpret Etsy's rules was as an elaborate code for "people like us" -- affluent, middle class, first world residents.

Dylan16807 12y ago
I don't follow you. How is keeping things hand made and priced appropriately nonsensical? What economies of scale even exist when it comes to hand crafting? Also, how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves?
- noelwelsh 12y ago
  > how is it anti third world artisan to require they make their own page and get the full first world price themselves? I'm basing this on my experience in Morocco in 2004. I doubt the artisans I saw could afford Internet access, or would understand how to work a site like Etsy, or had sufficient written English skills to deal with first world customers. The mail system was notoriously prone to losing packages as well. If they could get a middle man they could access the market, but Etsy's rules forbade this.
  - mcfunley 12y ago
    Etsy didn't exist in 2004. The third world is much more connected now, on mobile phones. You have the old rules more or less correct, but the spirit of them was exactly the opposite. The intention was for Etsy to serve as a (much lower cost) middleman for third world sellers. It is certainly true that Etsy hasn't lived up to its own aspirations here, as yet. There is a backlash against the third world, but it comes from some segments of the existing US seller community. Most of the articles you see complain about "resellers," which is a catch-all term that can be basically code for "this person follows the rules, but is Chinese."
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      >Most of the articles you see complain about "resellers," which is a catch-all term that can be basically code for "this person follows the rules, but is Chinese." Are they actually reselling, though? There's a big gap between dog whistle racism and legitimately not wanting people to sell things they didn't make. The current rules of the site are a separate matter.
      - mcfunley 12y ago
        There are of course people who just put up finished goods without modification, and "reseller" is a descriptive term in those cases. That activity violates the terms, so these people eventually get banned. In my experience this is a tiny sliver of the activity that gets described as "reselling." In other cases people assemble items from raw materials (e.g. from Alibaba) in ways that may not strike you as particularly creative, but it's kosher when it comes to the site's rules. American sellers do the same thing and have been since the site's inception. Only the Chinese folks who do it wind up in critical news articles with the "reseller" label, though. If you see sellers described that way and they don't get banned, they have most likely gone through a documentation process whereby they explain their work with dated photos and other materials. Etsy sellers are highly motivated to flag their competition when they think there's a term violation, and real resellers don't last long. Disclaimer - I don't work for Etsy anymore.