You Knew Etsy Would Ruin Reverb

Yes. I see this kind of thing over and over.

The problem is that any sufficiently-large company will have a few agitators as employees, a few as customers, and a bunch of uninvolved outsiders willing to pretend to be employees or customers in order to exert cultural intimidation.

The night is black
Without a moon
The air is thick and still
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill

The goal of the agitators, roughly, is to exert cultural power by cowing others into gestures of compliance: "You must put this symbol, indicating support for our agenda, on top of your corporate branding for a week; if you don't, we'll raise a stink and level all kinds of unfounded accusations against your good name. We'll stage walkouts and call you a hostile workplace. We'll work, by fair means and foul, to get your business partners and distributors to drop your products. It'll be a huge hassle, and very much not worth the time and money it'll take for you to resist us. If, on the other hand, you merely superimpose our brand on your own for a week, we'll leave you alone and you can get back to business-as-usual. Nice market segment you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."

Features distorted in the flickering light
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night
The mob moves like demons possessed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right
Confident their ways are best

So of course the company makes the "smart" business decision -- how can you blame them? -- and plays along. Now the next company feels that much more isolated if it sticks its neck out.

The funny thing about this protection-racket is that it's not just using the fear and thin-skinnedness and neurotic guilt of corporate-decision makers as a weapon against them. It's also, perversely, leveraging the goodness of the corporate decision-makers as a weapon against them!

I feel peculiar saying this: Normally I think of corporate decision-makers as mere agents of bottom-line profit-maximization. But here's what I mean about their goodness: Those folks-in-suits are mostly a crowd of middle-class or upper-middle-class college grads with families who're just dealing with the mortgage, and the elderly mother-in-law with dementia, and their kids' badly-underfunded college savings accounts. They've spent their whole lives carefully staying out of trouble, making prudent life decisions. They give to charity and donate blood to the Red Cross.

Now, here comes some group claiming they're all wicked and evil if they don't signal support for...what? Basically, for a slogan. And it's a slogan that, frankly, nobody could oppose if they aren't a monster. The slogan isn't something threatening, but something axiomatic, like "No More Cyanide In City Water" or "No Microwaving Kittens."

Now, if you go to the website of the agitators' organization, that slogan everyone agrees with is only the first item on their agenda. The other items are a bit more...far-out. The second item might be "Abolish the Nuclear Family"; the third might be "Abolish Private Property"; and the fourth might be "Require Steve Vai To Keep A Brick Strapped To His Fingers So That The Rest Of Us Can Have Equality With Him."

If the corporate decision-maker is aware of this, then the other items on the agenda probably make him queasy. But, he reasons, his parents worked hard to get him into college; shouldn't he do at least as much for his kids? Dare he risk his job by pushing back against the agitators? Won't he be the only one to push back, everyone else having already given in? Won't he look like a fool, or worse, a moral monster, for resisting a slogan like "No Microwaving Kittens?" Has he, perhaps, been insufficiently sensitive in the past, to the needs of kittens? He has a good job and a nice house; shouldn't he feel guilty if he doesn't give back a little?

So, some of what motivates him to cave is fear and thin-skinnedness, and those aren't laudable. But some of it's a genuine inclination towards compassion, a genuine awareness of how good he's had it, and a sense of obligation towards his family. Those aren't bad things. That's what I mean about using his goodness, his virtues, as a weapon against him.

And so, one more decision-maker is cowed into a gesture of compliance. One more Christian who doesn't want his wife and kids to be covered in pitch and lit as torches at Nero's garden party decides instead to offer up an incense sacrifice to a statue of the Emperor. Go along to get along. One more corporate logo signals support for what, on the surface, nobody would deny...and simultaneously, infintessimally boosts a political agenda that goes far beyond the friendly slogan. The HR department creates "sensitivity training materials" to ensure every last employee signs off on it, or else. Naturally they all do. Who's going to push back? You'll just be made to look like a disagreeable a**hole, or worse.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat, and burn, and kill

That song, originally, was about a different form of religion-gone-mad. That particular form having been neutralized, another one has risen to take its place. It has its own dogmas, its own creeds, and its own Inquisition.

Funny how the wheel turns, eh?
 
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Yes. I see this kind of thing over and over.

The problem is that any sufficiently-large company will have a few agitators as employees, a few as customers, and a bunch of uninvolved outsiders willing to pretend to be employees or customers in order to exert cultural intimidation.



The goal of the agitators, roughly, is to exert cultural power by cowing others into gestures of compliance: "You must put this symbol, indicating support for our agenda, on top of your corporate branding for a week; if you don't, we'll raise a stink and level all kinds of unfounded accusations against your good name. We'll stage walkouts and call you a hostile workplace. We'll work, by fair means and foul, to get your business partners and distributors to drop your products. It'll be a huge hassle, and very much not worth the time and money it'll take for you to resist us. If, on the other hand, you merely superimpose our brand on your own for a week, we'll leave you alone and you can get back to business-as-usual. Nice market segment you have there. Be a shame if anything happened to it."



So of course the company makes the "smart" business decision -- how can you blame them? -- and plays along. Now the next company feels that much more isolated if it sticks its neck out.

The funny thing about this protection-racket is that it's not just using the fear and thin-skinnedness and neurotic guilt of corporate-decision makers as a weapon against them. It's also, perversely, leveraging the goodness of the corporate decision-makers as a weapon against them!

I feel peculiar saying this: Normally I think of corporate decision-makers as mere agents of bottom-line profit-maximization. But here's what I mean about their goodness: Those folks-in-suits are mostly a crowd of middle-class or upper-middle-class college grads with families who're just dealing with the mortgage, and the elderly mother-in-law with dementia, and their kids' badly-underfunded college savings accounts. They've spent their whole lives carefully staying out of trouble, making prudent life decisions. They give to charity and donate blood to the Red Cross.

Now, here comes some group claiming they're all wicked and evil if they don't signal support for...what? Basically, for a slogan. And it's a slogan that, frankly, nobody could oppose if they aren't a monster. The slogan isn't something threatening, but something axiomatic, like "No More Cyanide In City Water" or "No Microwaving Kittens."

Now, if you go to the website of the agitators' organization, that slogan everyone agrees with is only the first item on their agenda. The other items are a bit more...far-out. The second item might be "Abolish the Nuclear Family"; the third might be "Abolish Private Property"; and the fourth might be "Require Steve Vai To Keep A Brick Strapped To His Fingers So That The Rest Of Us Can Have Equality With Him."

If the corporate decision-maker is aware of this, then the other items on the agenda probably make him queasy. But, he reasons, his parents worked hard to get him into college; shouldn't he do at least as much for his kids? Dare he risk his job by pushing back against the agitators? Won't he be the only one to push back, everyone else having already given in? Won't he look like a fool, or worse, a moral monster, for resisting a slogan like "No Microwaving Kittens?" Has he, perhaps, been insufficiently sensitive in the past, to the needs of kittens? He has a good job and a nice house; shouldn't he feel guilty if he doesn't give back a little?

So, some of what motivates him to cave is fear and thin-skinnedness, and those aren't laudable. But some of it's a genuine inclination towards compassion, a genuine awareness of how good he's had it, and a sense of obligation towards his family. Those aren't bad things. That's what I mean about using his goodness, his virtues, as a weapon against him.

And so, one more decision-maker is cowed into a gesture of compliance. One more Christian who doesn't want his wife and kids to be covered in pitch and lit as torches at Nero's garden party decides instead to offer up an incense sacrifice to a statue of the Emperor. Go along to get along. One more corporate logo signals support for what, on the surface, nobody would deny...and simultaneously, infintessimally boosts a political agenda that goes far beyond the friendly slogan. The HR department creates "sensitivity training materials" to ensure every last employee signs off on it, or else. Naturally they all do. Who's going to push back? You'll just be made to look like a disagreeable a**hole, or worse.



That song, originally, was about a different form of religion-gone-mad. That particular form having been neutralized, another one has risen to take its place. It has its own dogmas, its own creeds, and its own Inquisition.

Funny how the wheel turns, eh?
Funny you quote that song as the other day we were talking about the way things are and I opined that things are very much like the witch hunts. Just replace "witch" with "racist".

It's a sort of community madness or mass insanity. Fortunately these things usually get to the point of ridiculousness and are then gone in an instant. We are almost at the point of absurdity so it should be over soon.
 
One of the hard parts here is that while it may be true that there's an overly-quick-to-condemn faction out there, it's also clear that there actually is a lot of conscious, unconscious, and built in systemic racism, sexism, ablism, and general xenophobia too. There are multiple statistics backing that up, not to mention the overtly objectionable characters.

It's not enough to call it all bs, that just leaves the privileged privileged, the targets targeted, and the left-behind behind.

I'm no way wise enough to know the way forward, but a first step has to be talking about it, raising issues when we see them. Where the lines are between complicit silence, calling out objectionable attitudes, and hounding someone unfairly, has to be worked out in the realpolitik of society.
 
First thing is to realize that there are only two types of people- folks that want a life, home and family and wish the same for others. Then there’s the ones that only care about themselves and nothing else has value. Put in the same situation all of us do the same thing, some have morals and some don’t. It’s not about race, sex etc.... although some go to great lengths to make us believe that. Manipulators are running amok and the goal is to separate people not bring equality- I believe it’s all an exercise to usher in socialism. 😳
I agree with most of this, except for the notion that there are only two types of people. I believe there are as many types of people as there are people, and that lumping people into types leads to the problems we are seeing.
 
One of the hard parts here is that while it may be true that there's an overly-quick-to-condemn faction out there, it's also clear that there actually is a lot of conscious, unconscious, and built in systemic racism, sexism, ablism, and general xenophobia too. There are multiple statistics backing that up, not to mention the overtly objectionable characters.

It's not enough to call it all bs, that just leaves the privileged privileged, the targets targeted, and the left-behind behind.

I'm no way wise enough to know the way forward, but a first step has to be talking about it, raising issues when we see them. Where the lines are between complicit silence, calling out objectionable attitudes, and hounding someone unfairly, has to be worked out in the realpolitik of society.
If you cannot specify actionable goals, and you cannot explain to people that they are reliably indemnified from the sins of others, then you are not adding anything by saying this.

What is to be done with this? People would love to redress grievances and historical injusticies (let alone current injustices!!), but it has to be done in good faith and building on shared values. Heck, it has to be doable at all... and no one is explaining that, which makes the claims suspicious.

At the moment, the mob is getting cartoonists from WaPo fired for having turned up to a luncheon years ago in a fancy-dress designed to mock a right-wing figure. It's tearing down statues of George Washington. It's getting the (pro-diversity) editor of NYT fired for letting a mainstream op-ed written by a Republican be aired in the opinion page.

The amount of sympathy on offer from good people on the "wrong side" of this mob is low... I wouldn't pile-on with generic appeals to "systemic xenophobia" and sh!t like that. Be clear and actionable or stop adding fuel.

IMO.
 
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I hate to get bumps of items out of my search filters, like stuff out of the EU.
 
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Looks like it's back to a single row of bumps on top. It was ridiculous then gone in an instant :p
Yup, looks to be back to a single row. Yay!!!

The cynic in me said this was planned in advance and it backfired. The bumps at the top were originally differentiated by a being in a separate area with a border and header that said "Reverb Bumps". Then one day the border and header were gone and the bumps were the same as the standard listings except for a small "Reverb Bump" caption under the photo. I remember when this first happened I was excited for a brief moment because I thought they had got rid of the bumps but then I noticed the captions and my excitement turned to disappointment.

The other sneaky thing they do is they constantly reset the seller location to "Everywhere".
 
Without leadership or at least regulation that has decent ethics and morals baked in, businesses will usually do about anything to maximize profits. It's all that (at least up through the 200-and-some level) college level business classes focus on. Resetting seller location likely increases sales, or at least they think ìt will....
 
And... they're increasing fees to 5%. Surprised it took this long.
Ah wtf. Announcement also sounds like they're more actively going to cater to businesses using their platform rather than individuals. Back to eBay I guess, or are they going to raise it to 5% too...
 
I just bought a used guitar on Reverb (Les Paul Standard, Seafoam Green). Awaiting delivery, but the seller is rated high, and seems like a knowledgeable and nice guy. But you never know. Don't know about this Etsy stuff. Usually I buy new, either from GC, Sweetwater or directly from the factory, but this time, because of the price and the unavailability of it , I decided to take my chance. Kind of fun, if it all works out OK. Reverb.com seems like a good site.
 
On eBay if you add up to eBay fees plus the Paypal fees it's around 6.5% of the final value (for musical instruments). I rarely use eBay anymore after getting burned by a couple buyers. One guy even sent me the same item back but with a different serial number and it was broken. And eBay usually sides with the buyer.
 
i do 85% of the deals off the Verb. pretty easy to just look at the dealers name and contact direct, or if its a private seller most of the time they want to go elsewhere to deal as well.
 
On eBay if you add up to eBay fees plus the Paypal fees it's around 6.5% of the final value (for musical instruments). I rarely use eBay anymore after getting burned by a couple buyers. One guy even sent me the same item back but with a different serial number and it was broken. And eBay usually sides with the buyer.
Same thing on Reverb with payment processing fee. It's currently 6.2%, but with the announcement it'll become 7.7%.
 
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