Hobbyists Use Etsy to Trade Day Job for Hard Work

It's interesting (if not terribly surprising) how most of these Etsy businesses simply don't scale. The thought of making the <i>same</i> thing over and over again is really quite foreign. I sometimes forget how much leverage we have as coders.

Here is another view on Etsy that isn't as positive. Take a look, I think the NYTimes article dances around this idea but isn't brave enough to come out and say it. It does dance around it a little bit on page two, I guess, but this article makes it the point that most aren't $100K seller and are women who are married and home with their kids.<p>"Etsy.com Peddles a False Feminist Fantasy"<p><a href="http://www.doublex.com/section/work/etsycom-peddles-false-feminist-fantasy" rel="nofollow">http://www.doublex.com/section/work/etsycom-peddles-false-fe...</a>

There are a lot of sellers there who either see it as pure fun or simply discount their time heavily, and as a result many items are an incredible deal.<p>Because of those people I was assuming almost no one was pulling a living wage, but it's interesting to see those 6 figure numbers.

unfortunately being able to live on making crafts in the US is not at all due to 'hard work', that is simply a red herring in terms of difficult things facing these producers. Instead, it is likely due to obscurity or the novelty of that market. Someone in the story is already hiring employees to do the work, it is only a matter of time when those employees, and then even the entrepreneur will be outsourced outside the country.

Countdown to IRS audits on all of them begins...