Etsy sellers are going on strike this week, protesting against the marketplace’s latest fee increases, resellers, and advertising policies. A petition to CEO Josh Silverman has nearly 54,000 signatures.

Etsy transaction fees hike from 5% to 6.5%, meaning the ‘essential fee’ will have more than doubled in under four years. Etsy has defended the hike, claiming the extra money will be reinvested into improving the marketplace, rather than boosting profit margins.

News:

• Google introduces a new ‘Multisearch’ feature, where users can search for an item using a photo, and select the colour to achieve a custom, targeted search.
• Spotify continues to experiment with the ‘Discovery Feed’, testing a personalised home screen feed. This introduces users to new music through canvas loops.

Start-up:

• MoonPay offers a simple way to buy and sell different crypto within one app. It can be integrated into exchanges, wallets, decentralized finance platforms, and the NFT market to offer seamless experiences.

Insights:

• Facebook adds the ability to post Reels from third-party apps through a “Sharing to Reels” integration.
• In just two weeks, Fortnite has raised $144 million for Ukraine relief, raising $36 million on the first day alone.
• Used by 600 m+ people, Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, has seen live-stream commerce sales rise by 7x year-over-year in 2021.
• Meta leans towards introducing in-app tokens that would be centrally controlled by the company, referred to as Zuck Bucks.