Etsy Wants to Crochet Its Cake, and Eat It Too

Can a company upend capitalism without really earning a profit?

- Amy Larocca

THE FIRST ITEM ever sold on Etsy was a coin purse in a tropical print. That was in 2005, and Etsy wasn’t much more than its founder’s dream: “an anarchist artist collective” that started when a guy who made wooden computers and fantasized about making everything right down to his very own underpants accidentally learned how to make websites, and accidentally made one where he and his fellow “makers” could sell their wares. It was that simple: Some people like to make things, other people like to buy things that others have made, and now, thanks to the internet, these people could be brought seamlessly together, to the benefit of all parties, including the host. It was, in its way, a very Web 1.0, bubble-era dream: disintermediation. The founder, Rob Kalin, named the whole thing Etsy because he wanted something without meaning so he could build its identity from scratch. Also, he’d just been watching Fellini’s 8 1/2 and liked the way people said “E, sí?” 

By 2008, Etsy had 650,000 members, and then the numbers began to explode: 5 million in 2010, 54 million in 2014. Kalin liked to think he was taking the philosophy of a beloved children’s book, Swimmy, and making it real: One ringleader fish rallies a bunch of his tiny friends together to defeat one big, bad fish. In Etsy’s case, you can call that fish “Walmart” or “Amazon.” Because Etsy has always wanted to do a whole lot more than sell pot holders: It wants to rewrite the idea of what it is to be corporate, all the while erasing the line between making money and doing good—going so far as to suggest that these two things are essentially the same.