[mcv]

And we keep subjecting ourselves to that.

It seems to me that the most logical response is for merchants on Etsy to get together and launch their own platform, collectively owned by the merchants. It puts them in control and not at the mercy of some company wielding power over them, while they keep the advantage of having a single platform with a lot of merchants.

In fact, I've also been thinking taxi drivers should do something like that to fight back against Uber. Cut out these artificial middlemen and deal directly with your customer through collective tools that give you the same advantage as the big companies.

[Fnoord]

Cutting out middlemen is what the Internet has allowed in multiple ways. Its one of the reasons brick and mortar stores are in decline. Yet we also see an increase in middlemen, in the form of dropshipping.

We're also subjecting ourselves to scammers on market platforms and "crowdfunding". I fell for one on Kickstarter, which is also available on IndieGoGo. IndieGoGo acted (by disabling it), Kickstarter has not. In fact, Kickstarter remove any personal information shared by backers about the scammers. Who's side are they on, I wonder? Not the backer's side, it seems.

I assumed these middlemen platforms (Etsy, Kickstarter, etc) are there to please both parties equally. I suppose the keyword in both these stories is service. If they don't provide good enough service, people will eventually work against the network effect to create something better.