I recently learned that Etsy actively terminates sellers based in China, seemingly indiscriminately, the message is quite clear that they just don't want to do this kind of business, unlike Amazon.
And for good reason; a big, if not THE biggest problem that Etsy has at the moment is that people's designs are blatantly getting stolen and reproduced at a fraction of the creators' price. There's a lot of pressure on Etsy to combat that. This is where copyright and (?) design patent laws come into effect as well.
People are trying to make a living by crafting things, and the free market is swooping in by undercutting them with a race to the bottom.
I feel like there could be a better version of this. Like an Etsy, but with support for creators, so that when demand reaches a certain threshold, the platform could offer support with scaling and industrializing the product, for a share of the profit. Essentially the same process, but actually rewarding the market-maker.
People are trying to make a living by crafting things, and the free market is swooping in by undercutting them with a race to the bottom.