Has anyone read the Slate article about Etsy? (Slate is the Washington Post's online magazine. Just to give you Brits some context, the New York Times and the Washington Post are generally considered the two best "broadsheet" newspapers in the USA.) In a nutshell, it explains that Etsy has a quarter of a million sellers and practically none of them make any real money out of it. Etsy is a feminine ghetto filled with well educated, stay at home mothers dabbling around with glorified hobbies.
I read this and thought, yea, so what's the point. Where is the "news" in this. I am a woman in my mid/late 30s with two little kids. I slog through childcare and domestic duties all day long and can only aspire to glorify my hobbies. If other mums have the energy and drive to get a little online shop together and make some pin money out of their hobbies then good for them.
The sting in the tail at the end of the article was the point that by aggregating buyers and sellers, Etsy was actually driving down the price of handicrafts worldwide thereby making it more difficult for anyone, especially in the developed world, to make a living out of it.
Is a whole lot of people dabbling and having fun, worth less than a few people scraping out a living?
