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Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

pcmag.com

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Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#171

Post by gernb »

I would argue the biggest reason craigslist is doing well it it's free and semi anonymous (it forwards all emails though generated addresses)

The UX has areas clearly neglected. For example in apartments there is a trashcan icon to hide a listing. But, it's inserted at the end of the description. If the description is long then the button does not appear.

Another is the categories. In SF, SOMA and Mission Bay arguably need to be separated but craigslist only lists SOMA and groups Mission Bay in with it. That's one of several areas that need to be split

I used it a ton over the last 6 months trying to find an apartment but in the end I found the apartment on apartments.com ... which is far from perfect but has some features arguably more suited to apartment hunting.

That I think might be the point. Different products can benefit from unique features

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#173

Post by snek_case »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #146
debaserab2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The killer feature that Facebook marketplace has is the fact that you can do some basic verification of the person you are selling or buying an item from.

Interesting. My impression has always been Facebook is somehow more riddled with scammers than CL despite the associated accounts. It seems like it has more to do with the transaction. It is hard to scam someone with an in person exchange of cash for goods. Annecdotally, many CL sellers have told me to just get the item from their yard and put the cash under their doormat

> It is hard to scam someone with an in person exchange of cash for goods.

You would think so, but some asshole tried to do this to me. We had agreed on a price ahead of time, and when he showed up, he tried to low ball me with a 50% lower offer. I refused to sell the item to him, and then he became aggressive and I had to call the cops to get him to leave.

I won't get into the details, but based on what I saw, I think this guy runs kind of a side-business acting as a middle man reselling tech gear. I think he does this routinely, probably low balls people and then tries to re-sell the same stuff on marketplace afterwards. I think tech gear attracts assholes/scammers more than anything else because it has a potentially high resale value.

So, just be careful out there. Never share your phone number with people from marketplace, and don't reveal your home address if at all possible. Try to have a friend over if you have people coming for transactions or do it in a public place.

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#175

Post by throwaway743 »

lkrubner wrote: post #156
lotsofpulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming technology for obviating business models is not a valid complaint. In this case, I would say the participants of the local society are responsible for paying for journalism and working to support local elections. But even then, you could come up with arguments such as so and so population was too poor and had to work two jobs and did not have time to attend city/county/state meetings, or were not sufficiently…

You write “Blaming technology” in response to a comment that does not mention any technologies. You might want to examine what your preconceptions are, that you would see “technology” in a comment that does not refer to technology. You were responding to a comment that describes two business strategies, perhaps you should respond to that.

They're either assuming printed local classifieds were overtaken by a website, or that CL is a site that performed better than the local classifieds website.

Not hard to extract, nor worth getting heated about.

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#176

Post by TheRealPomax »

bolasanibk wrote: post #133
TheRealPomax wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is craigslist, not facebook: don't over-engineer what you don't need to over-engineer. You just look at already-made datasets that give the real world distance between two places, and remove search results based on that. Never, ever, use google maps for this, and definitely don't use it "per query, as needed". The overwhelming majority of infrastructure doesn't change on even a yearly basis: use someone else's p…

>already-made datasets that give the real world distance between two places Can you point me to a source? Thanks.

I got you fam: https://www.google.com/search?q=US+distance+between+cities+d...

(aka if you actually need this for your project, you already know how to search for the things you need. If Craigslist needs one-time access to a GIS system to build an initial dataset for high volume countries, they can easily afford the limited time access and dev time to generate the dataset they need, as well as afford the dev time required to do a deep dive into which -free or paid- datasets already exists and are suitable, or not, for this purpose, as well as what licenses they come with)

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#177

Post by JohnFen »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #127
mikestew wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like 25 years ago when I said to myself, "there's nothing on the internet that I need to see so badly that I'll install RealNetworks", I'll put stuff on the curb with a "free" sign before I'll reactivate my long-deactivated FB account (or buy new, depending on the direction of the transaction).

I was right there too but all the rental apartments are via FB marketplace now to the point I literally could not find a place without getting back on it (DC). Absolutely pain, I miss craigslist

DC doesn't have property management places you can contact directly? The ones around here are happy to help you find units for rent.

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#178

Post by FearlessNebula »

nonethewiser wrote: post #114

I remember watching a Harvard System Design intro lecture by David Milan on YouTube. He was talking about tradeoffs and said that craigslist stored all their listings as static html. which was extremely cheap and performant but made it harder to edit and stuff like that. I wonder if they have changed since then.

I recalled the same, and was hoping to read some more information about that in the article.

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#179

Post by lotsofpulp »

lkrubner wrote: post #156
lotsofpulp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming technology for obviating business models is not a valid complaint. In this case, I would say the participants of the local society are responsible for paying for journalism and working to support local elections. But even then, you could come up with arguments such as so and so population was too poor and had to work two jobs and did not have time to attend city/county/state meetings, or were not sufficiently…

You write “Blaming technology” in response to a comment that does not mention any technologies. You might want to examine what your preconceptions are, that you would see “technology” in a comment that does not refer to technology. You were responding to a comment that describes two business strategies, perhaps you should respond to that.

I wrote technology on purpose, to cut through useless information. It is not relevant that “Craigslist” obviated classified ads. The root problem newspapers were solving was a seller being able to provide information to a wide audience of buyers. Technology brought about a better way of solving this problem, so the root problem newspapers were getting paid to solve with classifieds no longer exists.

Not having local newspapers/journalism causing problems with the local civic process is a separate problem, that has nothing to do with technology enabling sellers and buyers to reach each other more easily.

Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years

#180

Post by insane_dreamer »

PaulBGD_ wrote: post #123
insane_dreamer wrote: post #121

Craigslist >> NextDoor >> OfferUp >> eBay >> FB But definitely YMMV depending on the city you're in. I'm glad it's stayed the way it is. Arguably the best marketplace website, period. Simple to post, simple to use, local pickup only. Not infested with ad/promoted listings.

Agreed, although the sad thing is that eBay/FB have a large audience.. so if I fail to sell something elsewhere I'll usually have to switch to one of those two :(

I closed by FB account 10 years, not opening it up again even if it's to access their Marketplace. Was big on eBay back in the day when bidding was fun (before sniper bots took over), you could find good deals, and wasn't full of scams. Used it just this week probably for the first time in 10 years to find an obscure part that I needed replacing--still good for that.
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