Today's New York Times article on the surge of the handmade revolution got me thinking about a concern that's been lingering in the back of my mind for quite a while.
It's great that artists and small businesses are benefitting from the downturn in the economy and it's equally as great that shoppers have more reasonably-priced gifts to choose from...but what about the employees of the chains that are seeing their customers switch to handmade e-commerce portals like Etsy?
As a member of Etsy, should I feel guilty that employees are losing their jobs because shoppers are choosing handmade items instead of mass produced items? I guess you can't have it both ways since there always has to be a loser, but I can't help but wonder how much of an impact the crafting craze is going to have on traditional commerce.
The flip side is that chains like Michaels are doing booming business despite the downturn--hopefully this translates into jobs.
