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‘Bleed us dry’: Why tech platforms are facing rebellions
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‘All is fair’: In this file photo taken on July 8, 2021, Etsy CEO Josh Silverman walks to a morning session at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, United States. Silverman told the Wall Street Journal recently that the firm was always listening to its sellers and made changes only to benefit them. (AFP/Getty Images North America/Kevin Dietsch)
O
ver 10,000 sellers worldwide go on strike following Etsy’s increase in fee charges, signaling user defiance over the creative e-commerce website's shifting focus.
When Jak found online marketplace Etsy, it seemed like the perfect match: a tech platform for small traders to sell handmade items that promised to be a creative outlet and bring tidy profits.
Five years later, Jak is one of thousands in open rebellion against the place they once saw as a safe haven — part of a growing trend of users rising up against tech platforms.
"We were lured in with the 'shop small' slogans and low fees and useful marketplace, and then once everyone had built their stores up, they started to tighten their grip and bleed us dry," said the 30-year-old, who runs an online shop from Glasgow in Scotland and asked their surname not be used.
New York-based Etsy, which boasts sales of US$5 billion a year from around five million sellers and 90 million buyers, drew fury for hiking the fees it charges its small traders.
More than 10,000 of its sellers closed their shops for a week from April 11, in effect going on strike.
It came weeks after users of video-sharing platform Vimeo expressed outrage at a similar price hike, and users of social media platform OnlyFans forced the owners to abandon a proposal to ban explicit content.
