Pretty Terrible

Pop Culture Criticism by Natalie Luhrs

Links: 08/29/14

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. The super gross thing is that Etsy’s had that as an unofficial policy for a long time. Several years ago, when I was doing Laughing Rat Studio, I would see very cheap hand-dyed wool and knitwear being sold by South American producers. Sometimes the producer would admit using impoverished local women as their makers (under the guise of “helping” them), sometimes not, but it was obvious that even a lower cost of living in the country of production couldn’t be allowing these people to make a profit unless they were exploiting cheap labor. Whenever I reported these sellers to Etsy, nothing happened–not a thing–despite their rigid policing of the “vintage” tag, on the other hand.

    But that’s the thing–the “vintage” sellers were apparently a big enough moneymaker for the site that policing that tag vigorously made financial sense for Etsy, while on the other hand, small-time makers like Laughing Rat Studio were not. The yarn and knitwear sellers who exploited local labor and priced their goods shockingly low probably were selling in such volume that Etsy was making money hand over fist off them compared to the little shops that did $20-$100 business a week, and there was no way Etsy was going to kick those big sellers off the site for breaking such a basic rule. Changing the rule is just putting an official stamp on something they’ve done on the downlow for a long time. 🙁

  5. Bluegreen Circles, that’s weird, it was working earlier–I think a new theme was applied, as it appears the permalink was changed. I’ve updated the link.

    Merrian, I just checked the Etsy link and it seems to be working. Odd.

    Rat, I remember your posts about this and I know I’ve run into lots of mass produced yarn-items over the years at Etsy. It’s frustrating to me, as a consumer, and it doesn’t seem like Etsy really cares. 🙁

    Athena, I’m now humming “snacho snacho man, I wanna be a snacho man” and it is ALL YOUR FAULT.