"Amazon shifted gears so that it now litters its storefront with pay-to-play advertisements. In addition to overcharging its customers, Amazon is degrading the services it provides them."
Etsy is now just as enshittified. Almost everything on there is dropshipped bullshit from AliExpress. You have to trudge through a massive amount of crap listings just to find anything handmade.
From what I have heard from sellers it’s as bad on the other end. Nobody wants to buy a piece of handmade jewelry for $50, when there is an Ali drop ship that says “hand made” for $5. It’s extremely difficult to judge the quality until the item arrives, so shoppers get conned into buying junk to save a few $ that they thought was hand made.
Honestly that is the kind of stuff you want to get it right and get it right the first time. The potential for actual harm or risk of injury is to high for a partner you care about and want to keep in a maintained space of controlled harm.
You probably want to be able do your thing more than once.
Etsy is now just as enshittified. Almost everything on there is dropshipped bullshit from AliExpress. You have to trudge through a massive amount of crap listings just to find anything handmade.
From what I have heard from sellers it’s as bad on the other end. Nobody wants to buy a piece of handmade jewelry for $50, when there is an Ali drop ship that says “hand made” for $5. It’s extremely difficult to judge the quality until the item arrives, so shoppers get conned into buying junk to save a few $ that they thought was hand made.
Amusingly there are a lot of fetish gear Etsy shops that are still above board, but not much else in my experience.
Honestly that is the kind of stuff you want to get it right and get it right the first time. The potential for actual harm or risk of injury is to high for a partner you care about and want to keep in a maintained space of controlled harm. You probably want to be able do your thing more than once.