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I was never aware that Etsy had explicit rules about things being handmade or "vintage." I just assumed that the Etsy had that niche and that its community like
by baddox 12y ago
I was never aware that Etsy had explicit rules about things being handmade or "vintage." I just assumed that the Etsy had that niche and that its community liked things that way, and perhaps that Etsy purposefully highlighted merchants that fit that description.
Given that it is an explicit rule, I really wonder how there can be a clear way to distinguish between compliant and infringing merchants. Even the word "handmade" is tricky, despite having a seemingly clear definition. I once purchased some plastic coasters with laser-engraved mathematical symbols on them. By all appearances, it was a single person designing, cutting, and mailing these out, and it seemed to me like a perfectly appropriate product for Etsy, but it doesn't fit the most obvious definition of "handmade," and the manufacturing process could be trivially ramped up a few orders of magnitude if so desired.
- Red_Tarsius 12y agoI agree. Handmade is such a silly buzzword. As it turns out, Chinese sweatshops make a whole lot of handmade stuff! c: There's nothing inherently wrong with machine-made stuff.
- maratd 12y agoPlease feel free to invent a word denoting an object was manufactured by someone with extensive expertise and specialized experience.
- vinceguidry 12y agoArtisanal sounds like the one to use, if a bit on the cheesy side.
- objclxt 12y agoThe problem with "artisanal" is it's not a protected word, whereas "handmade" is. By which I mean you can't slap a "handmade" sticker on any old product - you need to be able to demonstrate that it is substantially made by hand. But "artisanal" isn't quite the same. I could have "artisanal fruit loops".
- Theodores 12y agoEven an iPhone is hand made when you get down to it, the Model T Ford was handmade too. Things that are not 'handmade' are usually made somewhere in the Far East by lots of hands in such a way that things appear 'bought' rather than 'handmade'.
- pjc50 12y agoThe thing that Etsy is really selling is "credibility" and "authenticity". It's some sort of post-Barthes effort to try and tie a product to the lifestyle of the person (usually a woman) producing it. The product itself is just a marker on which symbolism can be hung. Etsy is hardly unique in this, it's just that they're tied to "handmade" as a brand value.
- thomax 12y agoI would guess that "handmade" in this context doesn't mean "no machines were involved", but rather "produced on a small scale and without processing the product in a factory". Still, however you look at this rule, there are a lot of gray areas, and policing those must be challenging. I'd also guess that with an IPO on the horizon, the Etsy shareholders probably favor high volumes on their website, rather than kicking out shops that peddle non-handmade merch. A pity, that, because It's sorta the opposite of what Etsy was supposed to be.
- cauterized 12y agoI think Etsy buyers are looking for a certain level of unique-ness. "Not mass produced" seems like a good rule of thumb to me.
- beau85 12y agoAgreed. Reminds me a lot of what Fab was, before it tried to compete with Amazon -- unique, 'quirky' goods that felt like they weren't just mindlessly mass-produced (even if they were).
- baddox 12y agoIn your proposal, does "mass produced" refer to the physical production techniques, or merely the total quantity of identical items produced?
- cauterized 12y agoBoth, I guess. An item can be produced in a mass-production manner even if only a few ever end up coming off the line. This also applies to items that are produced on assembly lines but sufficiently customizable that no two are identical. Similarly, you can hire 10,000 people in china or Bangladesh to use hand crafting techniques to produce millions of essentially indistinguishable items in bulk, working out of their own homes. Those items are still mass produced IMO. I think part of the issue here is that the seller is a middleman -- Etsy is about buying something from the person who created it with their own hands.
- loceng 12y agoIt's fairly impossible to know. Also, a creation could be made locally by someone, and still copied (whether from reverse engineering or an available template) and mass produced by someone else. This happens in any industry where duplication is easily (or not) possible and where there are people looking to make money - which is most industry.
- CPLX 12y agoThis is perhaps a cynical take on the controversy, but it's hard reading this and similar articles not to conclude that when Etsy critics say they want to preserve the "handmade" or "artisanal" character of products on the site, what they really mean is "not made by asian people"
- MBCook 12y agoReally? I don't see that. It seems like having a factory or workshop with hundreds of people making an identical item violates the spirit of the rule. I don't see why you'd assume they don't like Asian people doing it. I'm sure people would be just as annoyed if it was people in Africa or South America or somewhere in Europe or even the US. When you have a factory dedicated to making a good, it's no longer fair to call it 'artisinal' and compare it to a guy who makes 3 chairs a month in his workshop.
- CPLX 12y agoI've seen reference to Alibaba and China in a lot of these kinds of articles about Etsy. Seems like a bit of a dog-whistle thing to me, though I concede I could be totally off base.
- detaro 12y agoI bet "My Grandma back in Malaysia has been doing these crafts for years, here are her pieces" goes better than "I pay a bunch of high-school kids in Springfield, Kansas to glue those together for some pocket money"
- pbreit 12y agoOnce again, nothing really "just happens". It takes a huge amount of energy and resources to cultivate.