[Cthulhu_]

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.

[skohan]

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.