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?“
Want the one email I send when I have something worth sending?
114,000+ entrepreneurs get it. One story from my business, one tactic you can use. No schedule, no fluff.
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.
Start a business in 48 hours.
Million Dollar Weekend is the process I used for eight businesses, written down. #1 on Amazon and Audible.
Read the first chapter free
74 responses to “The Demise of Craigslist”
You get accountability with Air B and B? I’m calling BS on that one…
Absolutely right. The web is just too much bullshit. Oversold golden egg is rotting. I’ll take tried and true every time. You can almost count on fraud, hacking, internal flaws but hey if you are heavily invested ram it down the public’s throat until there’s a throw up. Puke!
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
Craigslist is a POS. Time wasting idiot bottom feeder flakes who always want something for nothing. A complete waste of time. Now they’ve adopted some bullshit watermarked website with images that load like molasses. The horrible scms, worthless phishing emails, stupid and incessant questions about information clearly stated in an ad, and the neverending sea of ahole no show no reply texting douches is enough. I’m done with their idiocy. DON’T BOTHER! USED TO BE AN 8 OR 9 out of 10 a decade ago….I would rate CL as barely 1 out of 10 now. They killed the goose laying the golden egg. I wish nothing more than their demise…they deserve it!
Craigslist has changed the scenario. On buying auto parts and buy autos why do they f*** things up?
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?
It sucks if you have hundreds of things to sell. When your items expire after 45 days they delete your pictures so if you click repost on the expired items (which has to be done one at a time) you have to re add pics, then the item you reposted still shows up in the inactive folder no matter how many times you have reposted. Anything the was deleted or expired stays in the inactive folder forever which makes reposting confusing when dealing with hundreds of items. There is no way to clear them out. If you save a search for anything you get notified of everything being sold by companies nationwide, totally unrelated to your search. There should be a way of reposting or renewing multiple posts at once instead of having to do them one at a time and getting a notice that you are editing too quick, try later. There is so much more wrong with it and it’s all common sense things, something that evidently no one there has.
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 “automated” removal feature gives envy and bad whiners competitors the perfect way to sabotage honest publicity, I don´t recommend craigslist anymore, despite we was using it for the past 10 years, nowadays it SUCKS!
Craigslist is the worst. It’s run by communists that flag honest and sincere posts before they ever go live. Yet, the post they let Last longest are the deterioration of society at its best. I have always thought the missed connections page was the most regulated before posts aired. I’ve noticed that men looking to suck dick get the most posts aired but people looking to honestly contact with a real missed connection are almost immediately deleted. Most times, posts are deleted before they go live. Don’t even get me started on how only Republican viewpoints last in the politics or r/r section. I’m not a Democrat, but craigslist all by itself might make me become one. If there were a Democrat out there that promised me the end of craigslist, I would jump on that ship right away.
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.
The problem with Craigslist is that now any idiot with a cell phone can use it to spam buyers and sellers. The internet wasn’t this way 15 or 20 years ago.
Craigslist is not free I need work around my house and now they charge to post a day job.
part of the problem is long term jobs offers were it ok to charge a fee for were posting in gigs Craigslist response it not punishing those posting in that group just charge everyone which stopped people like me posting there so people looking for a gig between jobs or on a day off to make a little more money simply stopped looking there as well. And the dating end was also killed instead of get rid of the areas were prostates hung out in and that not girl looking for a guy or a guy looking for a girl that another reason people do both to look at Craigslist any more
Craigslist has been all but dead around here since about May 2019, not sure what happened but the buyers all vanished. Almost no response from even high end desirable items.
There have always been lots of flakes but eBay has just as many non paying bidders lately.
facebook, letgo, offerup, and Amazon are hard to search and take hours sifting through too far away ads. In the 5 months I’ve been searching FB marketplace, I’ve yet to get a single response to any of emails on items for sale. Lots of ads, no sign of the sellers. I guess they list it and never check back to see if anyone has asked about it?
When CL started charging to list certain categories, those categories died. Cars and Trucks for sale has nothing but dealers and scammers now, only a few severely overpriced private sales. It went from 50 pages to 1 page. No more cheap cars, no more deals. Just retarded dealers listing things 100 miles away from where they’re at.
Even free ads sit with no attention lately. I was surprised when I emailed a guy who listed a Cub Cadet tractor for free over a month prior, he said he still had it and I was the only one who emailed. I made the 10 minute drive to his place and drove the thing onto my trailer.
He said he tried to sell it at first for $250, and got no replies, so he listed it for free. It sat listed for free for 41 days before I emailed. I guess no one looks on CL anymore? A year ago that would have been gone in minutes.
Craigslist is DEAD, NO SALES
I have one thing to say Haters and Scammers on Craigslist, Be Blessed!!
Cl is 90% Crap sellers and or buyers. You will exhaust yourself digging through the scams. Not worth it.
Unfortunately, it is obvious that Craigslist isn’t going anywhere. I like all the newer (offerup, letgo, Mercari, GoDolly) site’s but Craigslist is a very simple site that’s intended to do exactly what it does. I agree that habits are hard to break and also Craigslist Does not constantly keep you staring at your smart phone because of notifications. I think with the state of data mining today that will benefit them…. I’m constantly getting bombarded with notifications from offerup and letgo….. those sites are easier to use but def annoying. Gimmicks will fade and people will still go on CL.
I havent tried Amazon yet, but I will thanks. I have posted on Craigslist. I have sold on Craigslist but it’s the waiting. Then the emails or text. Are they going to buy what you are selling. I sold a a unlocked Note 5 from Verizon absolutely nothing wrong with it for $50. Why you ask? Why not. It was sitting there doing nothing while I used my new phone. I was more glad to see some who could have a desent phone with out breaking the bank. It’s an object. The worst part is trying to remove your post from Craigslist. Oh and to let you know and I don’t say this to boast or seek praises from anyone. I also gave away an essential ph1 phone to my new friend and sister and follower of the Lord Jesus for free. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. You forgot to mention offer up
Craigslist is already a downfall! All services used to be free know they’re charging for farm and garden post car post and service post. Scammers are on there by millions and they can’t seem to work out what the problem is to fix the situation to protect Craigslist customers. I loved Craigslist at one point but I’m very disappointed and getting away from using their services any longer.
Holy shit you need to learn how to write coherently. What a fucking roundabout way to get to a half-baked point.
Craigslist isn’t Angie’s List nor is it Amazon (both shit sites in their own ways). It’s a simple, unadorned classifieds site. Craigslist fucked up when it eliminated personals thanks to a fear of asinine regulations, and it fucked up again when it began charging $5 per ad per period to post gigs and services. Other than that the site is fine as it is, for its intended purpose.
For fuck’s sake, learn how to write if you’re going to publicly opine.
Craigslist was my go to place for buying and selling. Primarily by owner classifieds.
There is so much flagrant abuse by dealers that I got tired of flagging.
Owners struggle to sell and buyers struggle to find because of dealer abuse.
As a result, I don’t frequent antique stores, pawn shops or anything similar, they are the biggest abusers.
Craigslist is majorly bad news, to say the least. I try and post ads and even though they are in compliance, almost every single one is removed. And, I have spoken with others who have dealt with the same problem. It’s as if a troll is running Craiglist, not a decent person. There are others, too, who are running through the same thing. It would be nice if another site like it would run, but I’m disgusted with Craigslist. They are worthless.
Craigslist certainly as the traffic and he’s in it to make money. The name of the game is to let the site run its course and see how much value he can extract from it. If for example you’re looking to meet people, you can use tinder, to chat with people you can use Beep.IM, but people are used to CL so habits are hard to change.
CL is a great platform for what it is intended for… classified ads. As an auto and bike enthusiast it’s the fuckin asshole used tire shop shit heads and car dealers that fucked it up. I’m looking for a 1963 Cadillac and I get some dick selling his ‘85 Honda CRX hatchback that’s got six donors that made it up. But he lists every possible auto maker so I see his POS Honda. Same with the buy 3 get one free used tire dealers with 2% tread life left and a smokin deal for you guessed it YOUR CADILLAC and yep again every F’n automaker know to man. WTF??? I won’t purchase shit from anyone of those pricks for the simple reason they annoy. HEY IDIOTS!!!! list your shit where someone will look for it! You’re losing business outta consumer spite!!!
Craigslist will die. They made almost 700 million dollars in 2017 without their personal section and their human trafficking they’re going to take a nose dive into the abyss I promise you.
Craigslist has become useless, its been taken over by UBER. You can’t look for a job or car without sifting through hundreds of UBER ads. Now its all about the money… If I knew how I’d start “Mikeslist”
CL customer service sucks big time
You’ve experienced CL customer service? I find it highly unlikely given that it does not exist. I’ve not yet encountered a single individual who has ever received a response from CL for any question of any type.
If you mean that CL’s lack of any customer service sucks, I would agree with you.
Craigslist used be ok. Now, it sucks. Trying to charge for everything, just about. I don’t use it anymore.
Just realized I don’t use CL at all anymore because people flake out at least 50% of the time. Might try some of those you mention
The thing that hurt craigslist is they got out of the adult business. Looks like backpage is following suit. But there will be other guys coming in to fill the void. Eroticmonkey and others.
I couldn’t have stumbled across this article at a more appropriate time. I’ve been dealing with the bullshit of CL just trying to sell a few items lately. And you’re right, it’s more hassle than it is worth. I’d rather just post these things to freecycle.org to get them out of my hair, and stop dealing with all the spam and flakiness responses from CL.
Great post man. Thanks for the heads up about the other sites that are picking up where CL leaves off.
Great post on craiglist .. even i had launched website classifiedslove.com to compete with craigslist and backpage lol
It brings up a good point – another thought to consider;
I’ve been using CL to find prospective customers to make cold calls by checking for apartments in Chicago. Because the sheer number of ads and the volume at which they are posted I am not sure it is even worth using it anymore. Unless you have a tool that automatically posts ads your apartment ad will be pushed down so quickly it may not be worth the effort. Smaller markets may not have that problem but larger CL markets seemed swamped with apartment ads because it is free.
Craigslist epically failed by shutting down Craiglook, a service that allowed one to check with a mileage radius, for instance. As I undertand it everything was still filtering through CL but the engine was unique. Anyway, I always love reading their oddball personals.
It makes a lot of sense, and this is actually a huge opportunity. Just off the top of my head I can think of a few missing niches here that could also replace parts of Craigslist:
People needing painters
Businesses looking for independent consultants
Adults looking for high end music tutors
Looking for back alley independent car mechanics (kind of sketchy but could still work)
People looking for high quality artists for commissioned portraits or murals.
Those are just a few, but you came up with a great exercise: Pick a website that serves a huge group of people, declare it dead, and start looking for ways to improve it by niching down. Viola! Business ideas galore.
Why is there no tweet button? You’re making it hard for me to share your stuff.
I disagree. Craiglist will still be around perpetually for 3 reasons.
1. You get everything in one place. Even if Judy is right and there are 30 companies cutting tiny portions of revenue away from CL its still 30 freaking places you have to go. Most people don’t realize if something sucks or quality is diminishing, this is why ebay still has 96 million active users. It’s very hard for the average non techy to find 30 companies that do what they can do on CL. Others might do it better, but no one does it all.
2. Name recognition. Never underestimate the power of being first and people knowing who you are. Unless a service knocks the average consumer on the head they will continue to repeat old habits.
3. The fact that it offers little perceived ongoing interactive value is a huge value. Let me explain. Most companies now have a stickiness factors that keeps you coming back (they need you back), whether you building a friend list, getting emailed with the latest daily deal, or having your online minty site emailing you that your over budget on cabernet for the month, everyone is offering value to keep you coming back.
But what about CL, they don’t do any of this and yet they have 50 million active US users, and 2 billion page views a month. How come? It’s easy, you get in, they offer what you want, you get out. Simple. They cracked the code. CL doesn’t beg you to come back, you just do every-time you need to sell something quick or find something locally, and then you forget about them…Until next time. Thats Value.
Interesting point of view..
I agree for the most part, although I think you’re speaking as a pretty well heeled netizen.
not sure there won’t always be the … web pleebs who just plain “get” craigslist’s level of simplicity and not much more.
The quality of connections on CL has definately slipped I’ll admin, it used to be this nice little cachet of net friendly types with great attitudes, more and more the morons have taken over.
Thanks for making me think about it …
Thanks for this. Keep up the good work.
Just found this post and agree completely. CL is suffering from the mass market and all the noise that it brings. Since they’re content not being an innovator, it’s easier for more focused models to succeed where CL is ineffective.
And I also agree with Dave’s comment, that disruption will not come from a twist on the same distribution model. Excuse the self-promotion, but my startup, Zenlist (https://zenlist.com) is focused on being the Google ads for classifieds. Zenlist lets any website publish relevant classifieds and make money, and their users can connect and transact with other like-minded individuals. It’s a new, networked distribution model, and we like to say that we’re “re-democratizing classifieds”.
Firstly, Taco, taco, mucho burrito.
Secondly, I agree that people don’t want autonomy every single time they visit the site; it takes wayy too much time to filter through the noise to find what you want.
I feel that this is also the case with twitter. Too much content, not enough context to figure out what really matters to each individual.
on other notes, you were in Singapore?!
I like this little picture of companies taking out pieces of craigslist —
https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-craigslist-like-most-vcs-that-focus
add fiverr to the list of killers
I couldn’t agree with you more. This post is dead on. The way we buy and sell on the Internet is evolving. People want more than a crude description or a poor set of pictures to base a purchase on. Video is the new medium to communicate in and video classifieds is the next evolution of classifieds. Yapeo.com is bringing the power of video to classifieds in a way that will change how people buy and sell.
good article. when i read this i thought about china’s http://www.bangyibang.com (meaning ‘help a little’), not international yet but exactly for things like “get me flowers by tomorrow at 10 a.m.” and someone helps you get it done.
I agree with you that craigslist is in danger of losing its position in the next few years but I think a lot of its users value the sheer volume of items listed on the site. I see it more like thrift shopping rifling through droves of clothing racks to find that one awesome shirt for $5 rather than a hip boutique that buys the same clothes from the thrift store and sells them for $15. And for the issue of flaky people, how would another site be able to prevent flakiness??? It can’t, people just flake occasionally and theres no way around it.
Just coming in here from your webcast for Ramit.
Your analysis here makes way too much sense. I didn’t realize you could sell items other than books on Amazon, so thanks for that; am now off to check out the other services that are chipping away at craigslist.
Thanks for the webcast with Ramit. Great stuff!
Taco. I do believe CL could use a “refresh, but its been doing ok up until now and probably just needs that extra push or nudge by a more fierce competitor. It doesnt mind the smaller companies/sites coming in. They actually preffer it, due to the fact that they provide a full service and have everything “in house”.
Sincerely, A. Mcdonald
Niches, little tiny well manicured niches is the new opportunity.
Thanks Noah,
I appreciate your perspective. Thanks for the alternative niched service websites. Very handy!
Matthew
Taco.
OLX https://olx.com is based on this idea – Craigslist not innovating, not commercial/ aggressive enough
Noah, a friend in the Valley’s doing a startup that [to my simple mind] fits in with your thinking. It’s called TrustHop – you might want to Google them.
See you again in Singapore some time. 🙂
– Varun.
“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.”
this coming from the guy who admittedly takes time to hunt for a coupon code if he sees a space for it on a checkout form?? 😉 jk.
CL quality has definitely degraded – at one point it was the place where all the early-adopters hung out so it had a higher caliber of user. now it’s rife w/ cheapskates and those high IQ early-adopters are fleeing to the services you pointed out. IMHO it still has a place but in the same way that yardsales still have a place if you’re seeking the unpredictable treasure hunting experience vs. the predictability of Walmart. Certainly for things like scouting for a roommate, using a paid service is going to yield people who value their time over money and are therefore likely to self-select to being a higher caliber of candidate.
sean
Your analysis makes a lot of sense. I agree with it.
There will always be some sort of demand for CL (or something like it) because some people either 1) don’t highly value their time or 2) genuinely enjoy the process that results from the inefficiencies of craigslist’s model.
One of the biggest complaints I have about CL is that is filled with people who don’t value their time or aren’t willing to spend money if they don’t absolutely have to. As someone who isn’t in this category myself, I’d prefer to use websites that don’t specifically attract that crowd.
does bill gates use craigslist?
Agreed that CL is far from ideal and that new businesses will ultimately erode their model unless they provide better functionality. But I’m not sure offering a premium experience with the same distribution model is actually going to bring them down.
It’s tough to unseat a free service that’s hit critical mass with prevailing technology. There’s certainly room to offer a premium experience in those niches, but it’s tough to beat a consolidated service. It’s much easier to visit one place than 10, and the same is true of remembering them. The jobs market is a great example–it’s an insanely competitive market, yet they’re able to steal business while charging. That flies in the face of the segmentation idea, even if they don’t dominate the market.
I’m sure disruption will come, but I’m not sure it’ll be a result of a competing website that offers a twist on the same distribution model (or multiple sites for that matter). More likely, it’ll be a technological advance that cripples their distribution or makes the model obsolete entirely.
The one thing I’ll say is that leaving Craigslist is frictionless, provided other alternatives have the same inventory. There’s no true value for me as an individual beyond what the community provides. I don’t lose any data, standing, friends, etc. from leaving. Same can be said of Google Search, though…
This post communicates more about you, than the changing marketplace. You’ve matured to the point where you don’t mind paying extra to get what you want with quality service, but that doesn’t mean that everybody else is also.
In this economy, craigslist will only get bigger. Look at the unemployment, it’s not getting better.
A good quick example: I needed a DSL modem. I could have spend $40+ and bought it on ebay or amazon (new retail was $90+), received a tracking number, saved half an hour of time and received higher quality of service. But after posting on CL, I drove two miles and picked it up for free from a lady that no longer needed. My cost: 2 miles worth of gas, a smile and $0 cash.
Services like Airbnb will also get bigger, but not at the expense of CL. A certain number of people using CL will get tired of using it and will be able to afford and use services that provide better service/support, but it’ll still be a very small portion and probably not noticeable to CL.
I’m also in the same boat as you are. Many times there are cheaper alternatives on eBay, but I’ll pay more on Amazon because I don’t have to deal with all of the headaches that comes with buying on eBay, paying with PayPal, and hoping I receive what I ordered.
So you’re actually suggesting a splintering of services across multiple technologies? I thought the big thing was combining disparate services into one mega-conglomerate service which can be a one-stop-shop for people?
That being said, I agree that Craigslist has not been agile enough in dealing with the issues their customers encounter. BUT something as similar as a verifier user account (anonymous of course) which allows spam/useless accounts to be more easily filtered out, and some better way of getting listings to be visible would go a long way. Hell, it could even get some income from the free service (pay $1 to be a featured listing, etc).
Good post!
Adam
Great post Noah. I’d agree that CL isn’t covering the bases like it used to- the user experience is just a little too bulky and the accuracy and authenticity is lagging.
To add to your list of replacements, I’d throw in Odd Jobs (https://oddjobnation.com/) under the “tasks” category. Used them several times with a great experience.