I don't think it's about the money, as you propose, but more about Etsy craving to be more than just a place where people buy and sell stuff. They probably consider that uncool. Perhaps success has gone to their head a bit.

Be that as it may, I can imagine it's not easy to resist the urge to 'swing for the fences' and 'make a platform play' or 'build a social-commerce ecosystem' when you're killing it in a space you pretty much invented like Etsy is.