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How Craigslist Makes Money

forbes.com

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Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#221

Post by placeybordeaux »

Frondo wrote: post #192
placeybordeaux wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

w.r.t bitcoin being the new payment method, so far bitcoin hasn't enabled the really game changing thing: frictionless micropayments. It's possible that lighting networks will enable this (load up your browser with 5 bucks and lock that up in a connection to the LN, pay for articles then pay 1 cent to skip ads, buy premium features one at a time etc), but we haven't seen this yet.

Having read the Scott McCloud book that focused on micropayments almost 20 years ago, and having seen so very many people try something and have it go nowhere, I've come to the conclusion that micropayments are simply never going to be a thing. My guess is, at the end of the day, people don't want to think about money transactions when doing ordinary things. You know that word "gamify"? Adding badges and shit to thin…

What do you think about non-human actors interacting through micropayments? Either your computer acting in your interests with a small sum of money, or autonomous agents that live through a couple hours of compute at the cheapest price & keep their own wallet.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#222

Post by creepydata »

itchyouch wrote: post #213
creepydata wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5-10 million!?!? Thats steep. What are you going to spend $5-10 million on? I plan on retiring early at $1.25 million. I could do it on less but $1.25M lets me keep the lifestyle I have now, which is awesome. I don't live in a trailer park, I own a big (to me) house and I spent tons on food and booze.

Gotta keep up with inflation. 5M generating 3-5% on super safe assets is 150-250k/yr that's generated. After taxes (~40%), that is 90-150k which is 7.5-12.5k/month to spend. A typical 2-3k sqft newish home in an upper-income neighborhood (median income around 80-90k) runs 400-600k+, which will yield a $2-3k/mo mortgage and $500-1000/mo in property taxes + 500-1000 in general utilities. So just to own a home in an upp…

Well that house/lifestyle is unreasonable to me, in my opinion. What area has $12,000 a year in property taxes? Does it come with government lap dances?

That's also not how taxes work on capital gains.

I live in a wonderful house I bought for $220,000 with 20% down. I could downgrade if I need in the future but I like the space right now. The P+I of my mortgage is $750/month, taxes $400, utilities $250, insurance $145. I live in an average neighborhood, I don't live in an upper income neighborhood because I don't like upper income neighborhoods, they are too far away from everything. I also don't live in a 'hood. I live on the coast 2 miles from the beach and waking distance to plenty of places. I doubt my town is somehow unique in that respect.

If your spending is less than your capital gains and dividends you never have to worry about money again.

I was replying to "$5-10M is probably the low bar for living a kick-ass non-tied-to-employment lifestyle in the US." I have a kick-ass lifestyle (to me) for much less than $5-10M so I disagree. I don't think living where you have to drive 20 minutes minimum to go anywhere is "kick-ass." I don't find joy in buying new gadgets to impress my neighbors. I ran the numbers and Kick-Ass is at a million and a quarter to me.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#223

Post by pascalxus »

jzawodn wrote: post #187
pascalxus wrote: post #52

just look at how successful a business that is, so simple, so little innovation and yet so much revenue. But despite all that, they have the best feature (X factor) in the wolrd: market timing. ohhh what i wouldn't do, to time travel back to 1995.

What's innovation have to do with it? Sounds like someone has convinced you that things have to work a certain way and you've found your first counter example...

It's a broadly held belief by many. It's good to look at craigslist to see how simple solutions are all that's necessary. Any yet, too frequently, we see companies spending soooo much money on useless features and so called innovations that don't help them solve their problem. This happens for both failing companies and very successful ones too. It can be difficult to isolate, exactly why something works, when you have so many confounding factors.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#224

Post by pascalxus »

jzawodn wrote: post #187
pascalxus wrote: post #52

just look at how successful a business that is, so simple, so little innovation and yet so much revenue. But despite all that, they have the best feature (X factor) in the wolrd: market timing. ohhh what i wouldn't do, to time travel back to 1995.

What's innovation have to do with it? Sounds like someone has convinced you that things have to work a certain way and you've found your first counter example...

Actually, this day an age where all the simple problems have been solved, we're especially susceptible to this line of thinking. As entrepreneurs, we all know the saying: "It has to be x10 better than the existing product". Without new problems to solve, increasing desperation mounts, culminating lots of failures where a product is supposed to be x10 better.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#225

Post by ouid »

wingerlang wrote: post #199
ouid wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying that Forbes is insane for giving a number so low based on their estimates. it is off by almost an order of magnitude what you would expect for similar companies.

I read your comment twice, it _does_ sound like you think it is too high.

It really shouldn't.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#226

Post by stickfigure »

derefr wrote: post #174
colmvp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but it's interesting to me that they could've created Airbnb, as they had both the reach and finances to potentially create a side-project that was specific to short-term rentals. They already had sublets and temporary rentals as a sub-listing since forever. I know that Airbnb comes across as warm and fuzzy hosts who engage with guests, but it's progressively more commercialized with a good…

I don't know if that's a matter of hindsight. AirBnB operates by pushing the boundaries of rental law, frequently overstepping them, constantly getting into fights with municipal governments. Not everyone wants to have that sort of a business, no matter how potentially profitable.

Craigslist has had its fair share of that:

https://www.google.com/search?q=craigslist+erotic+services+l...

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#227

Post by hackunomatter »

creepydata wrote: post #218
cjrp wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which airline, out of interest? I understand that American airlines have less attractive Biz/First offerings than European and Middle-Eastern airlines.

Lufthansa. Doesnt matter though, no matter what they do they aren't going to take away the fact I'm stuck on a airplane for 15 hours. I'm also the kind of person who prefers to get up and get something rather than be served.

If you have to travel, then would you rather spend the 15 hours in Economy class or First class?

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#228

Post by itchyouch »

creepydata wrote: post #222
itchyouch wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta keep up with inflation. 5M generating 3-5% on super safe assets is 150-250k/yr that's generated. After taxes (~40%), that is 90-150k which is 7.5-12.5k/month to spend. A typical 2-3k sqft newish home in an upper-income neighborhood (median income around 80-90k) runs 400-600k+, which will yield a $2-3k/mo mortgage and $500-1000/mo in property taxes + 500-1000 in general utilities. So just to own a home in an upp…

Well that house/lifestyle is unreasonable to me, in my opinion. What area has $12,000 a year in property taxes? Does it come with government lap dances? That's also not how taxes work on capital gains. I live in a wonderful house I bought for $220,000 with 20% down. I could downgrade if I need in the future but I like the space right now. The P+I of my mortgage is $750/month, taxes $400, utilities $250, insurance $14…

It's all location dependent. Plenty of suburbs are 5 minutes away from just about everything necessary. I'm referring to upper-income as areas with median incomes much higher than the median US, not necessarily rich neighborhoods: Northern NJ, Bucks County PA, Northern Virginia, etc.

NJ property taxes are 2%, so a modest 1500 sqft sub 300k house like this runs 6700/year in taxes alone: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Cherry-Hill-NJ/3822405...

PA property taxes are cheaper, so a recently (1999) built home for 500k runs around 7.3k/yr: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Warrington-PA/9124953_...

At these rates, a house around 800-900k runs about 10-12k/yr in prop taxes. A ~600k house in NJ runs around 12k/yr. And as you get to closer commuting distance to NY, housing prices go up.

There's a reason why MMM is big on being very choosy about location. Northern NJ is crazy due to its proximity to NY and the taxes scale with the price. A 1 BR condo in SF can be 1M, or you can get a very nice, recently built 2k sqft house for 200k in Texas.

Personally, from living in newer homes and older homes (built in the 1950-60s), I prefer newer homes. They are generally more energy efficient and have less things that are a ticking time bomb that need to be fixed or attended to. Old homes need new furnaces, roofs, water heaters, leaking pipes, new appliances, leaking windows, drafts, etc.

Of course if one's spending is less than their gains & dividends, one is set for life provided that the gains are scaling with inflation or the draw down rate of the savings based on life-expectancy can last long enough.

Personally, I'd definitely agree that ~1M is more than plenty to live very comfortably as a single individual. I would want around ~2-3M if I had to support a family though.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#229

Post by iamatworknow »

coredog64 wrote: post #46
iamatworknow wrote: post #17

>It also charges fees to list postings in categories including ... automobiles offered by dealers This was a huge thing in my industry. I work with a lot of independent car dealers that used to list everything on their lots with Craigslist, then they started charging the dealers $5 a pop and many of them just quit using it. There are too many other car listing sites out there now that offer more than just an ad (vehi…

I'm happier for it, as otherwise you wind up with garbage ads from the smaller lots. For example, they'll list the monthly payment instead of the price, which makes wading through 'sort by increasing price' a PITA. Or they'll put a bunch of SEO keywords into the ad such that their vehicle shows up on a search that it shouldn't.

Yeah, I do understand that. But to comment on one point:

>For example, they'll list the monthly payment instead of the price, which makes wading through 'sort by increasing price' a PITA.

Every conference I've been to about the auto industry the experts say that, especially for low-income individuals, the monthly payment is what customers tend to be the most concerned about. In fact, many prefer to pay more total money over a longer term if it means a lower monthly payment.

Re: How Craigslist Makes Money

#230

Post by Nadya »

iamatworknow wrote: post #229
coredog64 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happier for it, as otherwise you wind up with garbage ads from the smaller lots. For example, they'll list the monthly payment instead of the price, which makes wading through 'sort by increasing price' a PITA. Or they'll put a bunch of SEO keywords into the ad such that their vehicle shows up on a search that it shouldn't.

Yeah, I do understand that. But to comment on one point: >For example, they'll list the monthly payment instead of the price, which makes wading through 'sort by increasing price' a PITA. Every conference I've been to about the auto industry the experts say that, especially for low-income individuals, the monthly payment is what customers tend to be the most concerned about. In fact, many prefer to pay more total mon…

>Every conference I've been to about the auto industry the experts say that, especially for low-income individuals, the monthly payment is what customers tend to be the most concerned about. In fact, many prefer to pay more total money over a longer term if it means a lower monthly payment.

I'm price sensitive about this - but for things I can't purchase as a one-off purchase I don't mind paying more money if it means I can pay a smaller amount monthly. To a point.

I imagine people who are more strapped for cash than I have less concern for just how much more they will be willing to pay over time if it means they have less worry from paycheck to paycheck. e.g. The difference between $250/mo and $375/mo could be their entire food budget for a month. So they could literally starve for 2 years and pay $375/mo payments or they could actually eat food and pay $250/mo for 4 years. Even if, without interest, they will be paying $3,000 more. ($12,000 vs $9,000).

This is one of the struggles of being poor: you can't afford to save money.

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