Etsy Striking, Collective Unconsciousness Marshals an Emergent New Order
The Old Centralized Order is flummoxed by the Newly Awakened Decentralized Movement
Etsy vendors are striking. Like other large platforms providing free lance opportunities, over time the character of the relationship evolves into the workers becoming enslaved to the platform. One class works and produces, another owns and dictates. The protest against the free-lance platform resounds in the Great Resignation, both rejecting the centralized corporate world order. Who is listening?
A Medium article by Luay Rahil No One Wants To Work — Businesses Are Losing It formulates it as a contest between old power and new power. According to the author, the old concentrates its power, and the new channels it.
Kristina Cassidy, the de-facto leader of the Etsy strike tells her story in a seven-part series.
All of the stories, in order.
I don’t like to introduce myself as a leader. I’d rather facilitate. But I guess I’m the de-facto leader of the Etsy Strike.
We grew from a tiny movement with just a few people, to tens of thousands of people, in less than two months. Each part of the story can technically be read alone, but it does make more sense in order. So here it is.
In 2012 all was well and Etsy seemed an ideal online community for hand crafters.
Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ: ETSY) made its stock market debut on April 16, 2015, with an initial public offering (IPO) of $16 per share.
On May 11, 2022:
Over the past year, insiders sold US$6.7m worth of Etsy, Inc. (NASDAQ:ETSY) stock at an average price of US$261 per share allowing them to get the most out of their money. The company's market valuation decreased by US$2.1b after the stock price dropped 16% over the past week, but insiders were spared from painful losses. losses By Simply Wall St
According to Cassidy, The Etsy platform remained a positive community for crafters until 2018 when the long-time CEO was fired. After that, the fees charged to sellers started to increase as the attitude toward enforcing the policy against resellers of crafts produced in low-cost global labor markets went lax. Global rules and policies were imposed that did not take into consideration the differences between the individual crafter’s markets. Star seller status was awarded based on one standard for all without taking into account differences between made-to-order customers and general retail sales. Advertising services were mandated that affected other business decisions. The increases in fees were justified to vendors as an investment in attracting new buyers but statistics suggest that after a brief introductory period, the increased expenses went toward acquiring more sellers. As Etsy reported increased profits to its stockholders, it continued to raise fees on its vendors.
Crain’s New York Business reported just after the Etsy sellers’ strike ended that Etsy CEO Josh Silverman was awarded more than $40 million in compensation in 2021, or 20 times more than the prior year.Etsy Announces $40M Bonus for CEO Right After the Sellers’ Strike Why Etsy Sellers Are Angry / Post from EtsyStrike.org by Valerie Schafer Franklin
An attraction of running a small business is making one’s own business decisions. Small entrepreneurs, working independently have their own freedom, but much of that is lost when the small entrepreneur hooks up to large platforms mandating policies in large swoops that advantage the platform at the expense of the small business user. For the crafter and the corporate workforces alike, there is no reason to believe that it will get better in the future.
A collective realization has taken hold in the working classes. There is a point when the alternative path is an unknown but the known path is the road to nowhere. There is no rational analytical map to chart the course, the collective unconscious kicks in like a data network, except it isn’t digital its a natural subliminal network, connecting humanity through the quanta of consciousness, no need to log on. It is entered into as an act of faith in the unknown.
It feels that the entire workforce formed a union, and they are negotiating with employers without having to come together collectively, and I believe employees will lose in the end unless if they channel their newly found power in the right direction. No One Wants To Work — Businesses Are Losing It The battle is raging between old power and new power Luay Rahil Nov 19, 2021
This Price History chart shows an inverse relationship between vendor profitability on the platform and stockholder profits beginning in 2018, the same time that Cassidy identifies as when things started going downhill for the vendors.
The same phenomenon happens in the centralization of the hand-crafted market, as happens in other sectors. There is an increasing gap in the income realized by the productive working class and the profits made by investors. The craft producers at least control their own time and space, a right that remote office workers are fighting for, but the ability to increase the space that a working endeavor inevitably requires is an investment and complicated by town ordinances coming down from the centralized state that envisions economic development as workforces employed by large corporations subsidized by taxpayers. The large centralized order of the state and its private partners is slow to recognize the emergent new order that was never part of its plan.
In many places, if not most communities, there is no housing category for businesses in a home, except when the ordinances are regulating the location and growth of home industry. In my hometown of Boothbay, Maine, the ordinances once recently said that anyone doing anything for pecuniary gain in the privacy of their own home had to have permission from the selectmen, even if it does not affect their neighbors. The ordinances limit the number of people a business in a home is allowed to employ as if it is not already naturally limited by space, and generously allows an artist to display their work but prohibits showing the work of others. An artist bought property thinking he would be able to sell his work and teach a four-person class but the Town prohibited it and for a while, the Town closed down Stimson Boatbuilding, an established independent boat builder because his new neighbor complained about the noise, causing thousands of dollars in loss.
Luay Rahil makes an astute point, as the Etsy craft makers continue in their cause, they need to channel their power into advocating for ordinances and other policies accommodating and enabling businesses in a home, otherwise, they may find themselves falling victim to housing limited to “workforce” solutions that assume the workers work only in corporate controlled premises and need only the bare minimum of living space.
Craft-making and other small businesses that can be done in a home require space. The working class entrepreneurs need to fight for adequate creative working space to be recognized and accommodated in municipal ordinances, as well as in economic development thinking. Otherwise, communities will continue to plan for “workforce housing”, grids of houses for workers employed by large corporations, sometimes even controlled and managed by the employer, the conventional thinking that has got us to where we are today, the choice between the road to nowhere or the exit ramp into the unknown.
As one who was raised in a business in a home, the unknown is a more familiar path. Andersen Design was established in 1952 and carved out its own niche market. The proposed Andersen Design Museum of American Designer Craftsmen is seeking board members to bring it to reality. As a 501 (3)(C) Model A fiscal sponsor, modeled on Fractured Atlas but targeting the designer-craftsmen community, The Museum as fiscal sponsor offers an opportunity for designer-craftsmen to apply as fiscally sponsored projects of the 501(3)(C) Museum, enabling access for the free enterprise craft maker to non-profit funding resources, that can include establishing a studio space.
The fiscal sponsorship function of the museum can be done as remote work, without requiring the museum to invest in real estate. Even Fractured Atlas is working that way today.
Of the eight staff members currently at the Senior Director and C-level tiers, none live and work in the same state (Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Vermont). And more than half of our Fractured Atlas team now live in 11 U.S. states and 6 countries, with fewer than half spending any time in our sole physical office on 35th Street in New York City.
Conceptually, museum spaces featuring the history and work of designer craftsmen can also be a decentralized network of museums in diverse communities that create local community and regional centers that culturally connect the designer craftsmen community as a force unto itself, giving voice to a creative grassroots entrepreneurial spirit. Since the museum is not yet formed, its bylaws are not yet established. That will be the work of the founding board. The study of the 990 forms of non-profits shows that board members are not paid but the director of a non-profit commonly makes close to100,000.00 a year.
Andersen Design does not seek that leadership position but hopes to apply as a project if the Museum is established so that we can raise funds for a research, design, and training center. We still have a line of hundreds of classic designs that retained their marketability over the decades. and are productivity economic development assets. The Sandpiper is a classic example that was a number one seller in a well-known high-profile catalog for over three decades. As a handmade product, no two sandpipers are ever alike. Today Andersen products commonly sell at higher prices than our former retail price point in the secondary markets, including Etsy. There is great potential in working with individual studios to produce limited edition lines based on the individual choices of the maker, that are distinct even in a production piece.
Based on the Andersen market, developed over seven decades, and with appropriate funding, Andersen Design, the private entity, can create a niche market online venue for hand-made crafts. The Andersen Design online market would be curated to retain consistency with the Andersen Design brand, selling other hand-made products that are compatible with our brand, keeping the venue small and offering unique hand crafted products while linking with other small venues that feature uniquely curated styles and categories of makers, not a centrally controlled platform, instead it would be a decentralized network of niche markets.
Everywhere, the vendors on large platforms, have the same complaint. The platform is not fair to vendors, but it’s the only game in town. It doesn’t have to be that way. The vendors complain that genuine hand made American crafts are used to attract buyers to the platform where products made in low-cost labor markets are sold, and those markets are also controlled by corporate interests who negotiate with the government to look the other way when they take the paper labels off that identify the place of origin to expose permanent American labels underneath. Can a decentralized network succeed? Can we compete as a united decentralized market? Not if we don’t try. Let’s take back our freedom! You’re worth it!