The Pushback on Knitting.com

[JoelR]

Inspired by the Quartz article: 

https://qz.com/knitting-ecomcrew-reddit-etsy-boycott-online-community-1850864449

Quote

 

In February 2022, two ecommerce bros plucked [the domain Knitting.com] from obscurity. Dave Bryant and Mike Jackness, calling themselves the EcomCrew, bought the site for $80,000. Neither had any knowledge of knitting—but they did have a goal of flipping the undeveloped domain into a million-dollar business within a matter of years.

In a podcast, Bryant and Jackness described knitting, with its high search volume and SEO potential, as the “perfect niche” for sales on Amazon. Many competitors in the space were “pretty unsophisticated,” they said, and amounted to little more than a “grandma who has the little blog that she’s run for the last 20 years.”

The language was distinctive. It smacked of Silicon Valley-speak, and in the year since, it has become emblematic of a broader conflict between online communities and the corporate platforms that operate as their enclosures. Today Redditors are on strike, X (née Twitter) is in turmoil, and Etsy vendors are boycotting and leaving the site. These tensions, which have only recently come to a head, were years in the making. Site owners are increasingly, and more aggressively, seeking ways to monetize online spaces for their own profit amid a slowdown in digital ad revenue. But communities are resisting.

 

Some thoughts: 

- I don't think communities mind being monetized, but I do think they require you to care first.  There is a very high standard of duty for community owners where you need to consistently show that you care first.  

- If you're going to make money off a community, try not to make fun of the users. That seems to be a pretty simple lesson.