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People ask me for technical advice, seeing that I am a technical person and a business owner, about how they should start their own arts business.

I tell them some practical stuff like "It's hard, but I think it's worthwhile", and "I think there's some merit in using platforms like Etsy and Instagram that are controlled by other people to kickstart, grow, and accelerate your operation, but I strongly recommend not being fully dependent on any platform you don't control. Run a website with a store, run a mailing list. Put as much effort in to those as you do Etsy or Instagram"

Or sometimes it will happen slightly differently. In those cases, frequently on the fediverse, I'll make a blanket statement about something bad that a Platform has done and follow it with some variation on "This is why you have to own your platform." and sometimes also "This is why the fediverse is so important."

In either case, I'm often met with a litany of responses and replies that are all variations on "You shouldn't judge people for being non-technical" or "not everyone has the time to run software" or some combination of reasons why I should feel bad about having rightly judged that the commercial platforms are dangerous. Sometimes I get called ableist for pointing out the fact that Facebook is actively exploiting people.