Abstract
Introduction
Platform markets, including digital markets, sharing economies, and social media, have burgeoned in recent decades. While consuming the services offered by platform firms, platform users often engage in production activities such as content creation, service provision, and sales (e.g., Cochoy, 2015; Cova et al., 2015; Eckhardt et al., 2019), which characterizes them as prosumers (Ritzer, 2014). Such observations have fueled research examining how prosumers may impact institutional aspects of platform markets (e.g., Dolbec and Fischer, 2015; Nguyen and Dolbec, 2020).
Prosumers appear to adopt entrepreneurial practices (e.g., brand development, audience cultivation, and monetization) that further the platformization of markets (Hagberg and Kjellberg, 2020). This can precipitate challenges for them: for example, power asymmetry between platform owners and users can lead to dependency (Cutolo and Kenney, 2021; Duffy, 2020) and exploitation of prosumers (Charitsis et al., 2019; Gandini, 2016). To navigate these challenges, prosumers may adapt their entrepreneurial practices in ways that can be detrimental to their own well-being, such as by engaging in hyper-quantification and algorithmic scrutiny (Duffy, 2020; Klawitter and Hargittai, 2018). Overall, scholars emphasize firms’ power to control and structure prosumers’ practices in platform markets, but also note that “user agency is largely ignored in debates on algorithmic culture and power” (Yu et al., 2022). Although knowledge on platform users’ resistance and coping practices is quickly developing (e.g., Ferrari and Graham, 2021; Soriano and Cabañes, 2020), little is known about how prosumers’ adaptive entrepreneurial practices can produce change in platform markets.
We address this gap by adopting a practice theory lens (e.g., Schatzki, 2002) to examine prosumers’ emergent practices in platform markets. Specifically, we trace change by focusing on sets of inter-related practices (i.e., practice bundles) and the connective tissue that binds the practices in such sets (Blue and Spurling, 2017). This approach is useful because it helps make visible the compound effect multiple prosumer practices can have on platform markets.
Ours is a qualitative study of entrepreneurial artisans using one or more digital platforms to sell their offerings. Our dataset covers over 15 years of activity on Etsy.com and follows those who have used Etsy and other platforms. Our findings indicate that when entrepreneurial artisans prosume on platforms, the connections within their practice bundle (that includes creating, promoting, and selling [CPS] crafts) are reconfigured. Specifically, on platforms, jurisdiction over some practices is redistributed; the material-spatial co-location of practices is altered; and the temporality of practices is transformed. This occurs because of platforms’ affordances and logics, but also because prosumers deliberately pursue opportunities and avoid threats related to platformization (i.e., activities migrating to digital platforms [c.f., Duffy et al., 2019]). As prosumers respond to changes in the practice bundle, they engage in a new practice we label “platformance.” This term, a portmanteau of “platform” and “performance,” refers to establishing and maintaining interconnected presences on multiple different types of platforms beyond a focal market, performing multiple market roles within the platform system, and adjusting strategies to each platform and role. Importantly, platformance goes beyond coping with challenges met in one platform by extending activities to competing platforms, a strategy identified in prior research (e.g., Anwar and Graham, 2020; Ferrari and Graham, 2021; Yu et al., 2022). Engagement in platformance reflects prosumers’ perception that, to succeed in platform markets, one must “play the part”—or perform success. Platformance is a “restless practice”: a practice with a “telos of change” that aims to alter the field in which it is embedded (Seidl et al., 2021). We find that although platformance contributes to changing certain platform markets elements in ways that may help prosumers deal with platformization, it also increases prosumers’ platform dependence.
These findings extend theory related to the role of platform prosumers in market change. Importantly, they illuminate that the aggregate impact of prosumers engaging in platformance can include the emergence of new actor roles, the blurring of market category boundaries, and the intensification of institutional logics. Further, using a practice theoretic lens on platformization as it impacts a particular category of prosumers paves the way for analyses that avoid over-estimating either enabling or destabilizing influences of platforms on prosumers’ entrepreneurial practices.
The challenges of prosumption in platforms
Recent marketing research has highlighted challenges of prosumption in platforms. For instance, Eckhardt et al. (2019) note that some individuals lack the skills to assume multiple types of roles in platform-based sharing economies, and others experience conflict when doing so. Smith and Fischer (2021: 270) note that “[o]nline platforms change affordances with great regularity,” and these changes can negatively impact prosumers. Similarly, Scaraboto and Figueiredo (2021) find that prosumers in platforms face competing institutional logics that make cocreation challenging. Further, Gandini (2016) finds that self-branding activities by freelance professionals using digital platforms may constitute a form of self-exploitation.
Beyond marketing, scholars studying digital platforms (e.g., Cutolo and Kenney, 2021; Duffy, 2020; Zuboff, 2019) also highlight drawbacks of prosumption on platforms. They note that while platform economies open opportunities for value creation and capture by prosumers, power asymmetries exist between platform owners and “platform-dependent” users (Cutolo and Kenney, 2021; Duffy, 2020). Power asymmetries arise because platform owners, unlike users, have a panoptic view of behavior on the platform (Zuboff, 2019). Platform owners take advantage of detailed data on user activity to direct attention and shape behaviors in ways that primarily benefit owners. They also control the extent to which prosumers can access or interact with other users, such as customers or audience members, using data-driven technologies to amplify, or limit users’ exposure. Owners also set the terms of engagement with platforms, leaving prosumers with the choice either to comply or leave the platform (e.g., Van Dijck et al., 2018).
Collectively, these power asymmetries subject users to an array of risks. One is “algorithmic insecurity” (Wood and Ledhonvirta, 2021): prosumers seeking to create and appropriate value on platforms face ever-changing algorithms that are “inscrutable by design” (Duffy, 2020). The opaqueness and ever-changing nature of algorithms on platforms can leave users anxious about how algorithms are working currently and how updates will affect them (e.g., Duffy, 2020).
Recent research has started to uncover how prosumers try to overcome these challenges, such as by investing in search engine optimization, purchasing fake followers or bots to build an audience (Petre et al., 2019), or spreading their production activities across comparable, yet competing, platforms (Anwar and Graham, 2020; Ferrari and Graham, 2021). Through these practices, consumers resist and attempt to “game the system” (Ramizo Jr., 2021; Yu et al., 2022). Rather than deliberate approaches to resist platform control, we argue, these emergent practices are prosumers’ reactions to changes in their existing practices triggered by engagement in platform markets. To examine these changes and the new, market-changing practices that emerge in response to them, we leverage practice theory as a theoretical lens.
A practice theoretical approach to prosumers’ engagement in platforms
Consumption and production are entangled as alternative moments of every practice (Hartmann, 2016; Molander and Hartmann, 2018). These practices make up the “ongoing routines, engagements, and performances that constitute social life” (Arsel and Bean, 2013: 901). Adopting a practice theoretical perspective requires viewing individual activities, such as a prosumer’s engagement with a platform, as performances embedded in complex social-material contexts.
Put simply, social practices are organized sets of actions (doings and sayings) linked through practical understandings, rules, a teleoaffective structure, and general understandings (Schatzki, 2002). Social practices form complex sets (bundles) in which elements circulate within and between many practices, forming the connective tissue that holds bundles of practices together (Shove et al., 2012). Things (e.g., bodies or material objects) can thread through practices (Hui, 2017), and general understandings and affects that suffuse practices can also connect them one to another (Hui et al., 2017).
Focusing on connections that bind practice bundles, rather than on single practices, allows researchers to approach large scale phenomena as a fabric of interconnected practices (Nicolini, 2017). Through this lens, platformization can be seen as having the potential to disrupt or reconfigure connections among multiple practices, thereby changing the markets in which practice bundles are embedded.
Prior research has examined processes of practice change (e.g., Gonzalez-Arcos et al., 2021; Phipps and Ozanne, 2017), and suggests that disruptions to routinized practices, triggered by technological, cultural, or individual changes, can cause the misalignment, uncoupling, or breaking of the links between practices, creating instability, and tensions in the enactment of each practice (Thomas and Epp, 2019) and in practice bundles (Hui et al., 2017).
It follows, then, that to understand how prosumer practices change in platform markets and potentially change these markets in turn, it is useful to consider the connections among practices affected in this process. One way of viewing these connections is to see them as a “conjunctive tissue” with multiple dimensions (e.g., jurisdictional, material-spatial, temporal) that change to shape connections among practices and what they can become (Blue and Spurling, 2017: 25). For example, the practices of admitting, triaging, and referring patients together make the social fabric of an emergency health care center. The conjunctive tissue connecting these practices has temporal qualities (i.e., these practices are performed sequentially and are all urgent), material-spatial qualities (the practices are co-located in a hospital, and share many protocols and materials), and jurisdictional qualities (practitioners’ tasks are related, as doctors rely on different experts [e.g., radiologists] to diagnose patients) (Blue and Spurling, 2017) Adopting this approach, we will focus our analysis on the CPS practice bundle which is at the center of entrepreneurial craft markets—where the prosumers we study are embedded—to examine how prosumers’ entrepreneurial practices are changed by, and produce change in, platform markets.
Research context and methods
“My name is Olivia Hayward and I’m a 29-year-old creative small business owner, lover of cookbooks, my Boston Terrier Ramona and makeup. I started Mane Message when I was in college. What began as a creative outlet, my small hair tie endeavor quickly took off and became my main source of income. … I currently make YouTube videos where I share the ‘behind the scenes’ of running an Etsy Shop. I make ‘Day in the Life’ vlogs, tips on how to start your own e-commerce business and more! Follow Mane Message on SOCIAL MEDIA for exclusive discounts and information on new products: [links].” (Olivia Hayward’s Store description on Etsy.com)
This qualitative project began with the aim of exploring the experiences of prosumers such as Olivia Hayward, who sell on online platforms. We focused on Etsy—an online marketplace for handmade and vintage goods—as our research context. To be Etsy sellers, individuals need to maintain a “shop” on the platform. Each shop is a unique web page where the seller lists items for sale. Sellers face strong competition within the platform, and employ search engine optimization techniques, keywords, advertisements, and social media promotion to attract customers to their Etsy shops.
Data collection and analysis
Dataset summary.
Interviewees’ profiles.
We analyzed the data by constantly moving between close readings of different types of data and the relevant literature. We identified emerging analytical themes (e.g., performance challenge, interpersonal challenge, temporal connection, jurisdictional connection) and interpreted them in relation to existing theoretical frames. We continuously tested the provisional themes across the comprehensive data set, searching for negative cases (e.g., sellers who quit platform markets altogether), discrepancies (e.g., no change in practices), and new information. We regularly discussed alternative interpretations to ensure the validity of our findings (Belk et al., 2012).
Findings
How are prosumers’ entrepreneurial practices changed?
The history of craft markets is diverse and multifaceted (e.g., Adamson, 2020; Klamer, 2019; Sennett, 2008), and the bundle of craft practices has taken very different forms in different times and places. Both our reading of historical accounts of craft markets and our observations of offline craft practices leads us to argue, however, that the main strands in the connective tissue that binds together the CPS practice bundle in offline contexts have been the artisans and the crafts they create. In part, this is because without the embodied work of the artisan, there can be no craft to promote or sell (Bell and Vachhani, 2020). Moreover, as our observations revealed, artisans often take considerable responsibility not only for making that which they sell, but also for promoting it, and for engaging in the physical transactions of selling. Of course, artisans have often collaborated with other actors in the field, such as gallery owners or organizers of craft fairs where their products gain exposure to potential buyers; they also, not infrequently, collaborate with fellow artisans on creating, promoting, or selling (Adamson, 2020; Lieberman and Lieberman, 1978). But it would be fair to say that artisans themselves and the products they craft are, and have been, the common elements across the practices central to craft markets.
With platformization, reconfigurations in jurisdiction over this bundle of practices are pervasive. Reconfigurations in jurisdiction refer to the shifts in the distribution of expert tasks in a practice bundle (Blue and Spurling, 2017). When artisans prosume on the Etsy platform, they must display their offerings in the highly standardized storefront format dictated by Etsy (Figure 1). Moreover, Etsy’s algorithms control which shoppers are exposed to which artisan’s offering. Combined, these features of the Etsy platform mean that jurisdiction over the promotion of their offerings shifts away from artisans, to the extent that they had control over promotion in offline contexts. Further, Etsy’s policies encouraging sellers to offer regular price discounts or promotions and pushing them to include shipping costs in their pricing reduce artisans’ jurisdiction over the pricing aspect of selling practices. An Etsy storefront.
The following excerpt from a post to an Etsy forum illuminates the jurisdictional shift related to this key interconnecting aspect of the bundle of practices: “Imagine my frustration to see a recent [article on Etsy’s customer-facing blog] focused on bargains & sales. […] In isolation, this article is no big deal. I have no problem with sellers offering sales, if that’s how they’d like to operate their business, but I *do* have a problem with Etsy’s ongoing inadequate marketing & misrepresentation of art & craft in the media. … How many art & craft galleries do you know of who run sales & pride themselves on their bargain prices? How many of them like to represent themselves with terms such as “bric-a-brac” & “BOGO”? Most galleries do their utmost to support & represent their clients - artists & craftspeople - by creating an environment in which they can achieve the best price possible for their work. It’s mutually beneficial to do so.” (Majulic, Etsy Forum, October 6, 2009)
As this post suggests, when artisans prosume on platforms such as Etsy, they lose jurisdiction over both how their offerings are promoted (Etsy uses terms such as “bric-a-brac” to refer to goods on the platform) and over pricing, which is an important aspect of selling. By featuring “bargains” and “sales,” Etsy—in contrast to offline galleries—repositions crafts as commodities. While Etsy cannot force individual artisans to offer sale prices, its talk of bargains and discounts seeps into the positioning of all offerings on the platform.
The jurisdiction Etsy gains over CPS practices is also reflected in conversations among artisans frustrated that they cannot make modifications customers request: “I see sellers and international buyers pleading for changes and it seems like they are being ignored. …USD for example. … It’s such a minor change that has been asked for for a while now. There are SO many things that need to be improved or implemented into this site. Advanced search, USD, a better shipping price list system (shipping calculator would be nice!) … an easier and clearer checkout process since many buyers seem to get confused by it….” (kimchi23, am Etsy forum, January 8, 2008)
While in offline contexts artisans could be responsive to client requests, Etsy has control over these aspects of selling practices on the platform. As these examples illustrate, performing on the Etsy platform may loosen the connective tissue between practices within the bundle to the extent that artisans lose jurisdiction over elements of these practices.
A second disruption to the connective tissue between practices arises from altered spatial-material arrangements. When artisans perform practices offline, they and the crafts they produce are spatially and materially co-located with their fellow artisans, with those artisans' crafts, and with their prospective customers. Such co-location is evident in Figure 2, a photo taken during field work. Artisan, crafts, and customers co-located at a craft fair.
Traditional material-spatial co-location means that artisans can interact directly with customers, answering their questions and forging commercial relationships. Moreover, in offline contexts, customers can physically interact with the crafts themselves, touching them and observing their color, texture, or other qualities. Likewise, artisans often interact with one another, sharing information and observing how their fellow sellers fabricate and display their offerings.
When artisans perform on Etsy, these human and physical connections are de-materialized. Products for sale are displayed in a digitized format, with tiny photographs. Depending on how customers search for the crafts they are seeking, they may be exposed to dozens of competing products that have been similarly tagged by sellers (Figure 3). These competing products may come from anywhere in the world, versus from the local sources that tend to characterize craft fairs. On Etsy, the artisans can only represent themselves by brief biographies and tiny headshots. Artisans can communicate with one another and with customers using platform affordances, but these communications are asynchronous and limited to written communications, which may be moderated by Etsy. Search mechanism and results on Etsy.
Of course, artisans who perform on Etsy need not give up their offline practices; most persist with both, using one in service of the other. For example, one artisan noted: “Some very successful shops have a strong presence off Etsy and drive customers to their items, Craft Fairs, markets, etc.” (ChillyJam comment on Etsy blog post “Buying Success,” June 15, 2007). As this quote suggests, artisans themselves can shape the material-spatial quality of the connective tissue between practices performed in offline and online spaces. Many sellers are drawn to Etsy precisely because it extends their reach beyond the local to the global. They willingly reconfigure the market category spaces they compete in, as is reflected in the following response to a request for marketing tips from a new Etsy seller: “Diversify the categories you list in (as long as you still fit in that category). I posted one of my funkier soap designs in geekery and got a lot of exposure to people who may not have found me in the Bath & Beauty category” (FoamyHug, Etsy Forums, April 27, 2006). As FoamyHug’s quote indicates, material-spatial connections to new product categories can create new opportunities, as they extend the domain of the practice bundle. Overall, it appears that material-spatial alterations in the connective tissue between practices loosen the links between some practice elements even while it forges new ones between others.
A third reconfiguration of the connective tissue triggered by platformization is temporal in nature. In offline contexts, CPS practices may be enacted sequentially over the course of weeks or months, depending on the schedule of craft fairs the artisan participates in, requests made by galleries or retailers, or custom orders placed by buyers. With platformization, the rhythms of artisan’s practices are compressed and regularized. The following post to a thread where artisans discuss the hours they put into their Etsy shops is illustrative: I have over 1000 listings (with at least 200 more items awaiting photography and listing). I get about 3-15 sales a day, which takes anywhere from 2-6 hours a day to fulfill. And there are customer questions to be answered, etc. More hours spent working on new item photography, editing, uploading, listing, organizing stock, checking inventory. I have a large number of listings expiring every month, so I try to do a quick “audit” of those to confirm my inventory and see if they need better photos (some listings are very old), do research on best titles and tags for good SEO, and listing clean up. … Now that Etsy added ‘videos’, which I am just trying out, I will spend even more time developing my technique. I didn't even mention the hundreds of items I could be making and listing if I could carve out the time, as I have a huge inventory of raw materials that I have purchased over the years.” (Artist Knitter, Etsy Forums, June 6, 2020).
As this quote suggests, platformization on Etsy encourages artisans to monitor their online shops daily to ensure that orders received are processed promptly; failure to respond promptly to orders can result in being prohibited from selling on the platform. The rhythm of practices is also compressed and regularized by the need to constantly check listings that are about to expire (listings disappear from the platform unless periodically renewed).
Crafty Poster’s quotation also underscores other temporal effects on the CSP practice bundle. Notably, platform imperatives to serve customer demands promptly and to update listings regularly lead to the prioritization of promoting and selling practices over creating, which means that artisans may spend a larger portion of their time on promoting and selling relative to creation practices; this can be thought of as temporal re-allocation.
Further, platformization tends to make practice bundles as a whole take up more time because new elements become entangled in online practices: taking photos, uploading and updating listings and creating videos all become additional aspects of promotional and selling practices. This effect can be thought of as temporal expansion. Such temporal expansion is well-recognized by artisans: “Of all the places I sell, Etsy is the most time consuming” (Susan Hammisch, Etsy Forums, July 5, 2008).
Artisans can resist the temporal effects triggered by performing on Etsy, for example, by putting their online shops “on vacation.” This designation signifies to potential buyers that an artisan is not taking new orders on Etsy until further notice, and using this option can slow down the rhythm of practices, re-prioritize the creative component of the practice bundle, or allow for less time-consuming offline practices. However, artisans who pause their Etsy shops can anticipate that when they reopen them, they will be deprioritized in the Etsy search engine which means less exposure to potential customers. Thus, for many, the option of taking time out from Etsy is unappealing. And to the extent that artisans perform primarily on Etsy, the regulative, material-spatial, and temporal impacts on connective tissues between practices are likely to persist.
How prosumers respond to practice changes and influence market dynamics
Our analysis suggests that artisans respond to changes in the connective tissue among the CPS practices by engaging in a new, connected, practice which we call “platformance.” Performing platformance entails joining multiple online platforms of various types and performing multiple roles on them under a linked identity and, in doing so, pursuing changes in the platformized field. This new practice joins the CPS bundle through the material arrangement it shares with them, including digital platforms themselves, artisans’ bodies, craft projects, computers, cameras, and other artefacts entailed in making posts to platforms. We regard platformance as a “restless practice”: a practice with a “telos of change” (Seidl et al., 2021) whose purpose is to amend markets in the face of platformization.
Platformance supports prosumers by enabling them to rework aspects of the connective tissue. In particular, prosumers engaging in platformance attempt to (1) exert control over some aspects of the practice bundles; (2) readjust temporal connections among practices in ways that makes them more effective and easier to perform; and (3) expand the spatial-material connections among practices, protecting themselves from the risks imposed by specific platform companies on their users. We unpack each of these below, and consider how they may impact market dynamics.
Exerting control over practice bundles
When artisans rely on Etsy alone, they may attempt to leverage the affordances of the Etsy platform itself to gain increased control over the promotion of their offerings. For example, some have devoted time and energy to understanding how algorithms influence the performance of their online shops (Klawitter and Hargittai, 2018), and how metrics (e.g., numbers of viewers) can be leveraged to promote their shops on social media. Prosumers invest much effort not only in understanding algorithms and optimizing their use, but also in gaming them (Petre et al., 2019) by discussing, testing, and implementing actions on their online shops and other platforms. Artisan Miranda, for example, explains how she spent time online each day “playing games” that increase the visibility of her Etsy store: “This is a group called Shameless advertising. It’s just little games that increase your exposure on Etsy and Google. I play with the other sellers. I do this every day; This is the stupidest thing I do every day, but I have to do it. So... There are thousands of games, but for example, this game is that you have to ‘heart’ 24 products from the store listed above. So… you go to the bottom of the list. This is as if it were a thread of conversation, and you go to the last one. The last one is Marina. So, I write: ‘Marina’ to say that now I’m the last one. And that I did it for her. So basically, you have to, for the last person you have to search for their URL. I don’t know how many times during the day, so it appears that this store has an incredible search.” (Interview, 2018)
In addition to evidencing sellers’ understanding and experience of algorithms—that is, their algorithmic imaginary (Bucher, 2017), the games Miranda and other sellers used to play on the Etsy forums (which are now heavily moderated to minimize such activities), are attempts to gain some jurisdiction over the connective tissue that links practices: artisans attempt to change how their stores are featured in search results. However, these games that were effective in the past are no longer, for platform firms constantly bar user efforts to gain power (Petre et al., 2019), as Cedrika, a member of an Etsy sellers mutual support group on Facebook, explains: “
Please read
: [...] STOP doing follow for follows / favorite for favorites. They are NOT helping you whatsoever and only damaging your conversion rates. Focus on your SEO and advertising to your actual customers through free methods such as your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Quality is better than quantity and posting your link to random fellow Etsy sellers is NOT going to help you. …If you suddenly have an increase in views from a ‘follow for follow’ but no actual purchases from any of them you’re just tanking your conversion rate and making the Etsy algorithm think customers aren’t interested in your items putting you lower in the search results. If you know nothing about SEO, get on YouTube and search Etsy SEO.” (Cedrika, Facebook post, March 18, 2022)
Cedrika’s advice considers the flaws in artisans’ folk theories of algorithms (Siles et al., 2020). Importantly, the solution she proposes to the issue is to use other platforms: “Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest” [...] “get on YouTube.” What she recommends is platformance: being present in other platforms and leveraging their affordances to support performance on the Etsy platform. In responses to this post, other sellers explain how they gained some control over the promoting and selling of their crafts by leveraging other platforms.
Similarly, take the following post by seller Bryanna, on the same Facebook group: “STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND GROW YOUR TIK TOK FOLLOWING! THERE ARE OVER 7 BILLION PAYING CUSTOMERS BUYING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES DAILY! LET'S MAKE SURE THEY BUY OURS!! I know this is an Etsy sellers’ group, but I know we all use TikTok as added advertising space. With 56K members in this group If we all follow each other’s small business TikTok and watched a few of each other’s videos we could have at least 56,000 views on each video and at least 56,000 new followers. At 10,000 followers we can become PAID Creators. Let’s Support Each Other So We Can Make a Living Doing What We Love and Leave Our 9 to 5s PERMANENTLY!” (Bryanna, Facebook post, December 9, 2020)
What Bryanna is proposing is a new “game.” She is leveraging one platform (Facebook) to strategize about taking advantage of the affordances of another platform (TikTok) to gain control over promotion and sales on Etsy. These activities also rely on social networks which, in offline craft markets, would facilitate information flows and the efficient arrangement of projects (Gu, 2017). As such, sellers help each other find and implement new, effective ways to (re)gain jurisdiction over the CPS practice bundle. Moreover, as prosumers share strategies and tips, they contribute to creating “peer advisors” as a category of actor in these markets.
Expanding material-spatial connections
As they observe how performing on Etsy affects the material-spatial dimension in the conjunctive tissue among practices, artisans often engage in platformance to expand the material-spatial connections among their practices across multiple platforms. For example, Saturnella, a seller who makes a living out of her craft and sells across many online marketplaces, explains: “It’s daft to put all your eggs in one basket even if it is a handmade upcycled eco-friendly basket made from unicorn hair and love. It’s not cheating, it’s business:)” (Saturnella, Etsy Forums, November 2, 2015). As Saturnella’s post underscores, materially-spatially distributing practices over multiple platforms avoids over-reliance on any one platform, that is, having “all your eggs in one basket.”
Artisans who engage in platformance appear to include independent websites in their portfolio of locations because these spaces in particular can be materially customized to display as much or as little as the artisans want about themselves, their creation and production processes, and their products. Independent websites also allow for more control over pricing and sales policies. Olivia’s website, for example, displays large images of the “botanically dyed scrunchies” she creates, very visible links to her presence in other platforms, and a timeline of her development as an artisan and small business owner, among other customized features (Figure 4). By designing this space where her products are sold, Olivia can materially manage the image of her brand. In doing so, she addresses the important issue that blogger Lin succinctly explains: “When people buy a product on Etsy, and a friend asks them where they got [it], the response is normally, ‘I got it on Etsy’, not the store/artist/brand” (Lin, on Aeolidia blog). Artisan’s independent e-commerce website.
Relatedly, and leveraging the networked sociality enabled by platforms (Van Dijck, 2013), artisans engage in platformance by actively pursuing and cultivating an audience of their own whose attention is directed toward their online performances. Cultivating an audience can amplify opportunities for the advancement and promotion of their craft. Ideally, a large number of connections brings artisans more exposure, views, clicks, and sales. Take Lou, for example, who claims his goal in starting a YouTube channel to post videos about his experience selling on Etsy is to build community: “First and foremost, I really want to build a community here. I’ve seen a couple of messages and Tammy, one of my patrons, was just mentioning about making a course and I think courses have their place and lessons have their place but what I really want is to build an actual genuine community here. So I have a couple of subscribers who email me regularly and we talk about their shops and different techniques and tactics and their products and pricing. That is what I want to build.” (Lou, A Knew World, YouTube video)
Whereas platformization allowed artisans to access global markets, it distanced them from the offline, geographically based groups that were sites of exposure to consumers and exchange among producers such as craft fairs and artisan associations (Gu, 2017). By engaging in platformance, artisans can attempt to recreate these spaces of meaningful connections on platforms, and may even intensify the degree of sociality in platform markets.
Readjusting temporal connections among practices
Artisans also perform platformance in ways that readjust temporal connections among practices so as to make them more effective and easier to perform (thought these practices do remain time consuming). Popular genres of YouTube videos among artisans are “studio vlogs” (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ot2r4nKANI) and “a day/week with me,” (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8poe8tI5JM) in which artisans show how they craft products, pack orders, respond to customers’ concerns, or go about other daily activities.
This and many other similar Studio Vlog and Day with Me videos illustrate that, enabled by platform affordances, artisans consider every activity they do as a potential source of content—and schedule their crafting and promoting activities accordingly. By doing so, artisans make sure their time does “double duty”—it allows them to work on their craft while simultaneously promoting it. As the temporal connections among CPS practices have been distorted and compressed by platformization, platformance allows prosumers to attempt to work with these changes to their advantage. By turning creating into a tool for promotion and selling, prosumers leverage platform features to reduce the time they spend in keeping up with the demands brought up by selling their craft online.
Discussion and conclusion
As our findings indicate, for artisans, the platformization of craft markets can unsettle the connections between the CPS practices as they existed offline. It can also give rise to a new practice, platformance, that is native to platforms yet that shares connective tissue with the pre-existing bundle of craft practices. While our insights are generated in the context of craft markets, however, we believe our theoretical insights regarding platformance may be transferable to other contexts where prosumers performatively respond to platformatization.
Our work extends prior research on prosumption on platforms by identifying “platformance” as a new practice that emerges in response both to the opportunities made evident by performing online, and as a response to the challenges encountered when doing so. Platformance bears a resemblance to the concept of “multi-homing” described in research on platform-dependent entrepreneurs (e.g., Cutolo and Kenney, 2021), in that prosumers who engage in platforming (like entrepreneurs who engage in multi-homing) deliberately distribute their performances over multiple platforms. Unlike multi-homing, however, platformance goes beyond simply selling goods on more than a single platform. It entails efforts to exert jurisdiction over practices in a practice bundle; to mitigate the temporal pressures placed on practices; and to forge bonds with other practitioners in ways that satisfy both social and economic goals.
In characterizing platformance as a restless practice, we highlight that platformance is a (partially) deliberate effort on the part of prosumers to reshape platformized markets (Duffy et al., 2019) in ways that suit their purposes. As our findings show, rather than allowing individual platform firms to dictate or delimit the evolution of markets, those who engage in platformance perform practices in novel ways that reconfigure the connections between traditional practice bundles and bring new opportunities.
Our analysis also indicates that platformance may reshape platform markets in ways that are not envisioned or intended by prosumers. For example, new categories of actors—peer advisors who coach other prosumers on how to navigate and game platforms—emerge as platformers share their tips and strategies with one another. Moreover, market category boundaries blur, with distinctions between exchange-focused platforms (e.g., Etsy) and content sharing platforms (e.g., YouTube) becoming ever-less clear cut. Additionally, efforts by prosumers to educate fellow platformers can introduce new forms of institutional work (Baker et al., 2019). Although unforeseen and unintended, such market shaping impacts can have consequences for both platform owners and platform users.
In particular, our analysis suggests that while platformance may wrest some control away from specific platform owners, the practice ultimately promotes and reinforces platformization. Platformance is based on platform logics (Burgess, 2021): it craves attention, it depends on datafication, and it encourages devoting ever-greater portions of the prosumers’ time to participating in platforms of some kind. Thus, the restless practice of platformization, regardless of individual prosumers’ goals, may fuel the increasing platformization of markets even if it lessens prosumers’ dependence on particular platforms, and triggers market level changes. It may create a self-amplifying cycle that perpetually reconfigures the connective tissues between practices as the platforms over which prosumers extend their performances evolve.
Future research is required to determine whether platformance, and the market changes it triggers, will give way to new cycles of prosumer/platform dynamics. We speculate that as prosumers who use platforms continue to adjust their practices, and platforms respond opportunistically, platform markets will continue to evolve. Adopting a practice-theoretic perspective that examines the reconfiguration of connective tissue that binds practices in such contexts, as well as responses to these processes, should be a fruitful approach to investigating these ongoing processes.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
Declaration of conflicting interests
Funding
ORCID iDs
