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Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

monkeymace.com

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Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#151

Post by encoderer »

vacri wrote: post #68
encoderer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. But if another paper copies the listing that you paid them to run -- and runs it for free -- the newspaper doesn't send a C&D. Nobody is expecting craigslist to push data to 3rd parties. They expose programmatic ways to access listings, and PadMapper used them.

Why on earth would another newspaper print an ad or a classified that they're not being paid for? Also, do you have any examples of this hypothetical happening and newspaper A not having a problem with it? Outside of tabloid culture, ye olde newspapers had much more in the way of principles, and using another's content without permission was reprehensible.

> Why on earth would another newspaper print an ad or a classified that they're not being paid for?

Don't look at me. That flawed analogy wasn't mine.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#152

Post by scott_meade »

romanows wrote: post #15
zobzu wrote: post #5

But wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't we all better off as a whole if technology wasn't solely based on profit only? I think that's the real question, and what started the whole "API" "open XXX", not "OMG I WANT IT /CRY/CRY" that the image suggests. Remember that most devs nowadays participate in open source projects and start to have different ethics than they used to have (which was, money > everything, and justifies a…

Honest question, what devs are you thinking of that put profit above everything else? Newcomers during the dot-com bubble?

That is a good question, seeing how I don't know how Pealk made any money at all.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#153

Post by graue »

neutronicus wrote: post #113
jacoblyles wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how Craigslist refusing to better themselves justifies the millions of hours wasted by their customers using their shitty UI. What a strange sense of justice. If you value users, don't hurt yourself to show it. Rather, don't shut off sites that save them hours of their limited and precious lifetime.

Simple. I don't think Craig is trying to flip his company for an acqu-hire. I don't think Craig will have any investors pulling him by the short hairs towards an IPO. My prejudice is that PadMapper probably wants to flip the company, and even if they don't, they probably have investors who want them to. I trust Craigslist, and I don't trust PadMapper.

You know PadMapper is a one-man operation? I don't think Eric (the guy behind it) even has investors. It seems like something he just hacked up in his spare time.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#154

Post by meddlepal »

Maascamp wrote: post #114
kenjackson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company has a monopoly on data and refuses to provide an API they're saying that they don't want to compete on the quality of their product This implies that part of the quality of a product is NOT the ability to gather data. This would be like me walking into a Walmart, setting up a cash register next to theirs and start ringing up customers and arguing that Walmart can't compare with my customer service. Ignor…

Well said. I'm actually shocked that a community of entrepreneurs would take the position that it's OK to demand access to a company's competitive advantage in order to compete with them. I'm not sure if it's a sense of entitlement fostered by all the seemingly easy money around tech startups or simply sheer laziness.

I think it is both. The problem is that hackers and entrepreneurs have different ethics (or is the correct word here philosophies?) and goals.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#155

Post by asanwal »

sirclueless wrote: post #87
asanwal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a slippery slope. Who defines these universal data types? And if they only are "defined" when someone gets big and powerful, doesn't that reduce the incentive to innovate and build big businesses? The idea of mandating any such rule is not the solution. It's antithetical to how markets should work. There's been no company that's managed to dominate forever. LinkedIn, CL, Netflix will be no different. Someone…

> That's what happens to incumbents. The market takes care of them. I'm not so sure. Communication tools are fundamentally different than most other products, because their primary value is the number of other people reachable through the service. This isn't true of most other industries, where you can drive a Toyota and I can drive a Ford and everyone is happy. When your a whole market is based on the ability to int…

I don't buy it. In the case of CL or the other companies mentioned (Netflix and LinkedIn), calling any of them communication tools is not really close to an apt description/characterization.

If we characterize them as communication tools, we are using a pretty loose definition. Moreover, inviting regulators (via their involvement in some sort of monopoly breakdown) into the proverbial henhouse is a nice mix of anti-free enterprise, anti-entrepreneurship and misguided/naive.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#156

Post by einhverfr »

talmand wrote: post #148
einhverfr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How far do you take this? If Microsoft decides tomorrow to say "if you want to write Free/Open Source Software, you can't use our API's" do they have a right to do so? What if it is competing with Microsoft software, i.e, "no use of our API's to build competing web browsers and office software" or the like? I am genuinely asking because I think it's as clear a line as one might think.

Yes, they have the right to do so. It might be a bad idea for them to do it, but being their APIs they most certainly have the right to do that. Microsoft has no obligation to provide services to their competition free of charge just because someone out there feels it is the right thing to do. Of course, various court systems may disagree with me considering it is Microsoft. The line is clear, the source of the servi…

first of all, I am not sure they do have that right. Certainly if they tried, it would open up questions of the scope of user rights (do I, as a user have the right to run add-on software on a Microsoft platform independent of Microsoft's wishes), the scope of copyright (does 17 USC 102(b) provide a safe harbor for interoperability and prevent a software vendor from using copyrights to deny areas for competition), and the like. And that's before getting into anti-trust law.....

So I think in Microsoft's case I would argue that they have a) no legal or moral right to impose such and b) no effective mechanism to enforce such conditions. They make practical tools, and people may use those tools in whatever ways they see fit. To the extent Microsoft can limit this through a EULA, they are subject to all sorts of judicial scrutiny.

For example, I have a hard time imagining that a "you may not run a web server on this edition of Windows" would be enforcible. Client access license requirements might be in some cases but I don't know what the dimensions are that they would be.

The question with Craigslist only becomes harder because to interoperate you are interacting with Craigslist's infrastructure. This is of course covered arguably by a different set of laws which may give Craigslist a bit more freedom. But we have laws in many states that restrict what, say, shopping malls can require of people entering (a shopping mall in California, for example, cannot prohibit pamphletting).

I would like to see similar rules passed regarding the internet equivalent of shopping malls, to be honest.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#157

Post by CamperBob2 »

ericingram wrote: post #111
crazygringo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the point is, entrepreneurs are currently fighting on the basis of their ideas, and failing , even though their ideas are better than Craigslist, because Craigslist is winning merely because of network lock-in, not because of innovation. Craigslist disrupted the classifieds industry because it had first-mover advantage in a new medium, the Internet. It now abuses that advantage in order to not innovate or even co…

I think this is fuzzy logic, to say the market is not working over time because some people you are close to complain about craigslist. You are ignoring a huge number of people and the vast majority of the market's information (even analysts can't pin all the dynamic in a market). An idea can't "beat" Craigslist. It's the whole of a product and team mixed up with constantly shifting market dynamics and human preferen…

An idea can't "beat" Craigslist. It's the whole of a product and team mixed up with constantly shifting market dynamics and human preferences

Here's an idea that can beat Craigslist: put up billboards all over town, offering $500 per ad to property managers and individual landlords in return for giving your site a 4-week exclusive on those ads.

That's the only way people will stop putting ads on Craigslist first, which in turn will be the only reason people will stop looking there first.

Network effects as powerful as Craigslist's can't be fought with a better product alone, as you point out. (See eBay for another example.) You either have to spend some money to take their market from them, or you have to be there when they fuck up.

And whatever else you can say about Craigslist, they are very, very good at not fucking up.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#158

Post by zem »

dedward wrote: post #129
zacharypinter wrote: post #21

Let's play around a bit with this mentality: Google: man up and build your own database of everything. Stop indexing our data when we already offer our own search mechanism. I get that everybody wants to build ajax web apps and ios apps and android apps and so on, but what's the point of the internet except for being the default client-server protocol if we can't create mashups? The whole point of the internet is tha…

There are tons of reasons why Craigslist, as a business, may have taken this road, from a simple "less hassle for us" down the road to "we're building our own stuff" to. who knows. They're a private business - they can do what they want - we don't get to demand insight. The vast majority of their users don't give a hoot about whether or not other parties have a way to wrap up craigslist data and do stuff with it. The…

we absolutely get to demand insight. whether they provide it or not is up to them, but demands are free.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#159

Post by ryanisinallofus »

monkeymace wrote: post #108
jasonlotito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PadMapper, a company that was working to directly compete with Craigslist? What about Padmapper?

thanks for that. PadMapper probably would have been fine if they remained craigslist only. I was watching Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai last night. In it there are a number of Samurai codes that are highlighted in title cards. One of them was this: "If one were to say in a word what the condition of being a samurai is, its basis lies first in seriously devoting one's body and soul to his master. Not to forget one's m…

I still think the rant is little more than link-bait (which used to be called flame-bait) but I feel the same way about iOS app startups. They should each memorize that quote.

Re: Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything.

#160

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

Maascamp wrote: post #114
kenjackson wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company has a monopoly on data and refuses to provide an API they're saying that they don't want to compete on the quality of their product This implies that part of the quality of a product is NOT the ability to gather data. This would be like me walking into a Walmart, setting up a cash register next to theirs and start ringing up customers and arguing that Walmart can't compare with my customer service. Ignor…

Well said. I'm actually shocked that a community of entrepreneurs would take the position that it's OK to demand access to a company's competitive advantage in order to compete with them. I'm not sure if it's a sense of entitlement fostered by all the seemingly easy money around tech startups or simply sheer laziness.

Well, I can't believe an entire community of entrepreneurs actually beleive this is a design/data use/competition issue and are failing to mention that Craigslist is protecting one of their ONLY sources of income. House postings.

Housing is 1 of the 2 things (job postings in certain cities is the other) that Craigslist charges for. So if Padmapper gets popular, starts listing from it's own website and people go directly to it, bypassing Craigslist, Craigslist takes a Massive hit in revenue.

THIS is a huge weakness. If you want to kill Craigslist start with Housing and Job postings in the cities that Craigslist charges for. Those 2 things ALONE are what are funding all of Craigslist.

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