Etsy Vendors to get option to buy $2,500 of shares before public float
wsj.com
wsj.com
I suppose if you boiled it down, they are selling "5% of planned public offering." So.. costs of selling those shares would be slightly higher. But, they have some presence from people who see the company the roughly same way they do, not as a piece of a portfolio or investment strategy. They get some buzz around the IPO (this article demonstrates that), if vendors are discussing it. It's not like they're giving away the shares.
A part of what's interesting is what's underlying it: an environment where so much capital is in the hands of rich people that there's not much point thinking of 'the public' as a source of capital.
I think income distribution is a lot easier to measure, comprehend and comment on. But wealth disparities are much larger, and I think the societal effect is different. If someone owns $2m in capital but $1.2m is a house and $1.8 is actively invested to yield an income of $75k per annum, is that person rich or are a middle class investor?
There's definitely markets for the middle classes. Apple, Walmart, etc are the biggest companies in the world and their business is selling stuff to us. But if your business is selling financial services or you want to raise capital, the middle class is irrelevant. It's not about risk or sophistication of the investor, it's about them not really having capital. I reckon that's significant. WHo has the capital matters.
Money gets even more theoretical when talking about capital. When you earn an income and use it to buy goods as service, the metaphor-made-real of money is relatively straightforward. I work for a company that makes medicines. They may me a salary which I can exchange for stuff other companies make. With capital, the link to physical things is broken. It becomes more of an abstract right^ to things. The right to establish a company. The right to future revenues from some venture. Rent…
^"right" isn't exactly it. It's somewhere in the ability/resource/right realm.
Consensual hallucination?
As others have mentioned, Lending Club has done this in the form of opening DSP to their Lenders.
3M is enough to live a 100k lifestyle for the rest of your life, but that’s considered ‘normal’ by HN standards even if it’s far better than most of humanity. But, my point is a young person with 3M is far richer than a retiree with that same income is they can also be self-sufficient (hava a job or just do things to save money) and let that money snowball. A retiree needs to insure a steady income without a job but a 25 year old can invest for the long term and take risks.
PS: Put another way, no pension, social security, or home equity but 100k is doing well by most standards at 25, but not so hot at 60.
I would say "never actually having to work again if you don't want to" is a fairly strong indicator for being "rich" in the sense that most people understand it.
The majority of the value in the Etsy platform comes from their vendors and community. If they didn't have vendors then the site wouldn't be so successful. Etsy are ensuring that their vendors are invested in the site with them and less likely to jump ship to a competing platform.
disclaimer: I did not RTFA
Of one thing I'd be sure: being nice does not come into this in anyway, it's all about business strategy
No gesture was made though. My wife is an Etsy vendor and never received any notice about this.
For reference, I find archive.today to be the most reliable way to bypass WSJ's paywall. I've never had occasion to bypass any other paywalls.
They are litering the Internet with stupid ads and malware!!!! Adblock is my right!!!!! Give us an option to pay for content, stupid publishers!
This is why, the Internet will always rely largely on ads.
I have high hopes that the Internet will find a way to finance itself that isn't based on ads/surveillance. I'm thinking of launching a platform to monetize sites.
The site you are trying to access is not permitted based on the category of this site as per the ~Acceptable Use Policy~
Site: archive.today, Category: Technology/Internet;Proxy Avoidance
Alas.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Etsy+Vendors+to+Get+a+Piece+...
However this does - http://missingregretsy.tumblr.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/24/business/boston-beer-the-s...
https://etsyipo.morganstanley.com
Which looks like it is now closed. Too bad, this stock is definitely going to be overbought after IPOing.
It's a shame that they didn't go with LOYAL3, as discussed in the article - it's much less forms and paperwork than Morgan Stanley required.