Etsy
Ranked 8 of 8 online marketplaces by recommenders
Still useful for finding handmade and niche items, though discovery is clogged with clones and drop-shippers.
Still useful for finding handmade and niche items, though discovery is clogged with clones and drop-shippers.
36 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 29
- approval share
- 19%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good for niche and specialty items
“Etsy has plenty of stuff like that, though you do have to do some filtering through the clones and the drop-shippers.”
Comment from 28 Jun 2026 in “The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II” “just search for like "hacker stickers" or "cybersecurity stickers" or whatever you are looking for”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “Laptops with Stickers” Convenient selling portal for makers
“provides a convenient e-commerce portal for them, but yes, it's the discovery that's been ruined”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax” “a friend of my mom spent the last decade pushing her paintings on etsy”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Data is everywhere. The government is buying it without a warrant”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Clones, drop-shippers and mass-produced junk
“For the past decade Etsy has been a rebranded Temu/Ali Express. There's almost nothing local, or original, or worth anything on it.”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax” “Etsy used to be awesome, now it isn't. Lots of mass-produced junk played off as quality made-with-care-and-attention kinda stuff.”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “Kickstarter Is Forced to Ban Adult Content by Payment Processors” “Etsy has plenty of stuff like that, though you do have to do some filtering through the clones and the drop-shippers.”
Comment from 28 Jun 2026 in “The US Army Issued Ocarinas to Soldiers in World War II” - Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax”
- Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness”
- Comment from 30 Jun 2026 in “Amazon Seller Reveals Rare Glimpse of Shadow Bribery Market”
- Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax”
- Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax”
- Comment from 28 May 2026 in “YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos”
Discovery buried by fake reviews
“provides a convenient e-commerce portal for them, but yes, it's the discovery that's been ruined”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax” “Etsy suffers from the same review astroturfing and product category crowding that Amazon does”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Amazon Tax” AI-generated product photos
“almost all sellers on Etsy are using AI for their pictures”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing” “I also hate that Etsy is now mostly an AI-image gallery.”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “AI is ruining haunted houses” Unwanted review emails with no opt-out
“sending you emails requesting reviews with no way of opting out of those communications”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway” “The think that its ok to spam you recommendation emails and not let you opt-out.”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “Pinterest is drowning in a sea of AI slop and auto-moderation”
Other online marketplaces people recommend
The four most recommended other online marketplaces, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | 238 | 605 | 28% | 13 | 10 yrs14 owners | — |
| eBay | 101 | 146 | 41% | 12 | 20 yrs13 owners | — |
| AliExpress | 62 | 76 | 45% | 12 | 3 yrs3 owners | — |
| Temu | 15 | 64 | 19% | 6 | — | — |
| EtsyThis page | 7 | 29 | 19% | 7 | — | — |
What people said
37 of the 39 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I also hate that Etsy is now mostly an AI-image gallery.”
“it's mostly flooded with mass-produced stuff”
“sending you emails requesting reviews with no way of opting out of those communications”
“Etsy is even worse for sponsored ads, way worse.”
“supposedly hand-made mugs on sale by hundreds of people on etsy”
“with much worse customer service when anything goes wrong”
“Etsy is full of AI and temu aliexpress slop”
“Lower quality, lower value, fake and imitation products becoming more common, etc.”
“provides a convenient e-commerce portal for them, but yes, it's the discovery that's been ruined”
“Etsy suffers from the same review astroturfing and product category crowding that Amazon does”
“For the past decade Etsy has been a rebranded Temu/Ali Express. There's almost nothing local, or original, or worth anything on it.”
“a lot of the stuff I find on Etsy is the same crap from Alibaba/Amazon”
“But better yet, boycott Etsy.”
“Fuck off with your FOMO, Etsy, there's plenty left.”
“doesn't become just a dumping ground for shady fly-by-night dropshippers”
“So I could never restore the listing.”
“Etsy has plenty of stuff like that, though you do have to do some filtering through the clones and the drop-shippers.”
“Etsy blocks my entire ISP”
“Within the last month both Mapbox and Etsy blocked my attempts to signup using a Proton Mail alias.”
“Etsy and Mapbox block signups with Proton Mail aliases”
“Etsy is a successful business, and the people who engage with it come back and reengage”
“It's like when Etsy turned into a Made in China marketplace.”
“Etsy used to be awesome, now it isn't. Lots of mass-produced junk played off as quality made-with-care-and-attention kinda stuff.”
“I've never bought anything from Etsy but I'm somehow banned from even viewing their site at all.”
“Etsy has become a graveyard for dropshipped garbage”
“today is a dropshipping front”
“The real craftspeople were booted from the site, by the cheap knockoff-spewers.”
“almost all sellers on Etsy are using AI for their pictures”
“tricky and inflexible to use for the seller”
“a friend of my mom spent the last decade pushing her paintings on etsy”
“having to scope out constant dropshipping scams”
“The think that its ok to spam you recommendation emails and not let you opt-out.”
“it's the same deal over there”
“Almost impossible to see.”
“Shout out to Kraken and Etsy for having the best security procedures.”
“I noticed the Etsy website didn't work at all”
“just search for like "hacker stickers" or "cybersecurity stickers" or whatever you are looking for”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.