If you love Craigslist say “Taco.” Anyone who reads this post just said Taco which is both awesome and impressive at the same time. It’s hard to meet people who dislike the service. It’s free, you can find almost anything you want and the company is so “good.”
Then why may they lose in the next 5 years.
“What you talkin about Noah?“
I was scootering down the streets of Florence a few months ago and I thought I saw a company sign that said they solve problems. Imagine a business where I could call up and say I have a problem, will you please get me flowers by 10am tomorrow. Bamn, done.
I thought a bit further about how Craigslist has tons of people looking for work, heck I found an unemployed guy to come over and help me move my things in exchange for $10 and my left over beer. The more I worked through the scenario the more I realized that even though it is a free internet service Craigslist was not ideal.
Why?
The same reason you aren’t buying your things off of eBay anymore. You want more.
You want consistency, clear expectations and frankly less bullshit.
The evolution looks something like this:
Internet was born.
eBay helped you get rid of all this extra crap you had lying around. Wow, they have no inventory, take a cut of everything and millions of people are making all this extra money. Boom. Success.
Next, we have Amazon. At first you were for my friend’s dad who was an early adopter engineer, then I graduated college and I bought that book from you since it was a few bucks cheaper than Barnes & Nobles. Recently, I am older and you launched Prime and I am just a pawn in your game. Put it out there and I’ll give you my dollars. I’m easy.
Anyways, the evolution follows how people want things to be easy and predictable. The same reason I sell all my stuff on Amazon Marketplace. I put my upc in and I get a sell quickly. No hassle, no community uproar over another fee, no 18 fields to input my ipod. Same with buying, I just find it, hit go and you have it on my doorstep in 2 days.
People want more. They can’t just have autonomous experiences each time with your product.
Back to Craigslist. Let’s say I want someone to help solve a problem of mine. I post it on CL. Get tons of shit responses, wade through them and maybe that person flakes.
So with Craigslist slipping new companies are picking off pieces like a Lion on a Zebra carcass.
Here are the companies picking off the slivers of Craigslist and, frankly, the sites that are better than Craigslist:
Gigs => TaskRabbit
Activites => Skyara
Housing => AirbnB
Tickets => Ticketfly
Gift Cards => CardPool
The list can go on of the pieces that are still available, Cars, Jobs, Discussions, etc…
Ultimately, these services provide you consistency and accountability. I know what I’m getting.
The companies above know how to make their customer happy every time. I know what you are thinking. Yes, Craigslist is free and very easy to use. I don’t think it will ever go away but I do think CL at times costs you more in time and money. Also, there is no value created over time while using the site. For instance, having you (as a seller) prefer me more due to my many successful CL purchases vs. the 50 other people who email to rent your apartment.
To me at this point in my life it is worth the few dollars in service fees to start using services that save me time and headaches.
Unless Craigslist adapts to how people are preferring to use internet services as the internet grows up I see a huge downfall in their business.
67 responses to “The Demise of Craigslist”
I used Craigslist extensively in the past but no longer. I can’t imagine how something so useful has become so sucky.
I think Craigslist now sucks. The have web designers who are more interested in design then functional. The flagging of stuff they have no knowledge of. They just suck now
they need to stop letting the public flag! duh craigslist
change the search control from dealer to owner at the top
i hate what craiglist has become .i can;t post any thing without begging flaged
The jerks doing the flagging are the ones that should be flagged. How can we do that?
I cannot even post a treadmill, a need for an RV spot, NOTHING without getting flagged and removed! I get one thing posted out of like 10! It’s USELESS! I am in process of creating my own site similar just because of this nonsense!
i absolutely agree. They flagged and took down my listing for a room to rent with no explanation. It was probably one of the many perverts that contacted me asking me if I was looking for a boyfriend. Um, no. Just a roommate
Craigslist might as well shut down. It’s useless!
Here’s another reason that Craig’s List sucks: have posted the following several times in RANTS and it gets flagged for removal by either C.L. or some anti-free speech cancel-culture PC busy-body self appointed censor who probably recognized herself/himself in the RANT:
“This is a place for RANTS. Got it? Know what RANT means, you meddling, frumious bandersnatch?? This rant doesn’t violate Craig List’s terms of use or bash C.L. or most users, so mind your own business, get a life, and go flag ads posted by scammers selling face masks and bottles of Purell for $1000 each. If “power” is what you lack in your life, try sticking your flagging finger in a light socket, and guess what? I also posted this online at a consumer site and a copy was sent by them to C.L. IN addition I posted it to another site so it WILL BE SEEN. Try flagging and deleting THOSE, you miserable, self appointed censoring cretan. I encourage anyone who agrees with this rant and who has experienced similar to post your own experiences. Maybe the busy body flagger’s head will explode as a result. If it gets nominated for rant of the year I’ll share the glory with you. Several readers have told me that they enjoyed it. 🙂
I’ve sold on Craig’s List for several years, have met some nice people, (bless everyone of them) but many for some reason, suck. They lack basic common sense, manners, human interpersonal skills or empathy. Examples:
1. A woman is supposed to come at 7 pm to look at a table. She doesn’t show or call. At 11:15 pm, my doorbell rings, wakes me up. It’s her, with her boyfriend and a little barking dog. No explanation or apology, instead she acts like she’s doing ME a favor and proceeds to try to talk me down in price. Bark, bark bark!
2. A man is supposed to come at 10 am to look at tools on my day off. He doesn’t show up. Calls me an hour later to say he’s running late, will arrive at noon. Doesn’t show up at noon so I call him. He and a lady friend decided to get lunch, he’ll be by at 3 pm or so. My morning could have been spent doing other things but shame on me for not acting like HE was the center of the universe.
3. Man comes to look at an antique pump organ which was clearly described as “playable but needs some work, hence the low price”. He has a screaming child with him. The kid runs around grabbing things, the man intervenes, the kid throws a fit, the man apologizes to the KID profusely during the visit for asking him not to touch things (the child clearly controlled him), then tells me that he really doesn’t want the organ because it needs work (duh ya think?) and he doesn’t know if he’d have the time to do that – because, um, he takes care of the kid all day. As they leave the kid turns to look at me and I smile at him and wave and he screams again. Not getting the organ makes sense, use that money for therapy.
4. Woman arranges to come to look at a coffee table that was described as large and heavy. She decides not to get it because she’s walking and….um….can’t carry it. I suggest that she drag it behind her and sit on it when she gets tired but she thinks THAT would be “dumb”.
5. A same sex couple come to look at a painting. The younger man makes rude remarks about it, raises his voice, says it was painted by a machine (it wasn’t) and demands that I lower the price. His partner, an older guy, just stares at the floor in embarrassment as his spouse treats me rudely in my own home. Why is it illegal to kick people?
6. Man comes to buy books, makes a pile of “keeps”, doesn’t want the others. I offer him the other books for free and he yells at me, thinking I’m trying to get him to buy those too. No apology once he understands – and takes all of the books.
7. I place an ad for FREE decorative items – statues, wall art, all kinds of things, but make it clear that you have to take everything. A young woman comes, I remind her again that she has to take all of it, she brings things down to her car a little at a time (didn’t want my help) then leaves – without taking everything. She only took what she wanted, the conniving little _____.
8. I place an ad for a FREE antique oak sideboard. Tell a man who wants it that I’ll be at work when he comes for it, but that my housemate will let him in, and that he’ll have to bring someone with him to help move the sideboard down from our 2nd floor apartment, as my housemate can’t lift due to an injury. He shows up with: his elderly, 4′ 2″ tall mother, who also can’t lift.
9. I post an ad for a free dresser. A young woman comes, says she wants it, then sits at my kitchen table and proceeds to stuff envelopes with flyers that she brought with her in a bag as she tells me about her wonderful boyfriend and the fact that she’s a witch. She says she’ll come back for the table on such and such a day and never does. She obviously wasn’t a good witch.
Yup: people like these make C.L. SUCK.
Amen!!!! Swear to jesus iv conversed with some of the most ignorant self absorbed obtuse morons on earth through craigslist. 95% of the ppl that answer adds I’ve posted act like I didn’t even describe the item at all when I literally posted pix, explained in detail, and even drew little arrows to point out exactly where and what a problem may be or if something is missing. Some of the most retarded troglodytes on earth will call text or email you with stupid questions that are already answered in the add. Pisses me off, and now? They fucking charge me 5 bucks for the privilege of wading through these dumbass chromosome deficient replies!!! And try finding a dirt bike on craigslist nowadays. 50 11 thousand adds by dealerships to fish through to find the 3 by actual owners and I’m like, GD, if I had the money to buy a new bike I wouldn’t be on craigslist you dumb motherfuckers!!! Emailed a dealership adding on craigslist for an 2013 Ducati monster that I’d give 1500 cash for it, they wanted 6500, emailed me back saying that that wasn’t even a quarter of what it was worth so I emailed back saying, yeah, I know, but I figured that since you spam the fuck out of a used items sales site and make it next to impossible to find something tangible to look at and consider buying, the least you fucks could do is entertain me for a second and pay your dues to the world in which you high Jack and take over with the 52 hundred thousand adds for new shit that yall post. Yep, they didn’t respond back, but I felt a little bit better nonetheless. I suppose it is what it is and like all things, eventually everything turns to shit after enough retarded assholes finger fuck it.
Yes, yes, yes! That’s exactly what happens! I live in Vermont and the same thing happens here… I only occasionally use Craigslist yet a high percentage of the time people ask me to hold something for sale until they can
come by and buy it (usually furniture) and they never show. Especially free stuff.. Incredibly rude as I wait for them. There’s something impersonal about craigslist.
change the search control from dealer to owner at the top
Craigslist sucks. That is all.