I highly disagree that owning Etsy is a bad idea if you're a seller.

From an old-school perspective, you should buy what you know. As a seller, you will know about the sentiment of other sellers and the impact of upcoming rule changes well before the general public. That gives you a head start over investors that don't use Etsy, and combined with your other due diligence, can help you make better investment decisions. Hint: You can make money if you buy when sellers are hurt and angry.

Also, unless you suspect Etsy is going to go bankrupt, you are not placing too many eggs in one basket by having a store and owning stock. They aren't the same baskets at all. Etsy has done many things that hurt their sellers but impress their shareholders:

- Taking away the ability to set max CPC

- Threatening shops to offer free shipping or they will automatically be moved to the second page of search results

- Forcing shops that make over $10k to be advertised on Google and taking a 40% cut

Etsy is absolutely following an Amazon-esque 'nickel and dime your sellers to increase profits to raise stock price' playbook. It's worked for Amazon, so why not?

I see being a stockholder as a hedge on my store income - the more they take away from me as a seller, the more profit they make, and the more the stock goes up.

Full disclosure: I was absolutely horrified with all three of those Etsy changes I listed above. Instead of shutting down my Etsy store, I bought stock. For every a-hole move Josh makes, I buy more and more stock. Shorting Etsy because I own a store would have been a catastrophe.