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If Craigslist cost $1

sethgodin.typepad.com

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Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#41

Post by brazzy »

webology wrote: post #23

eBay is a great example of how charging money does not curve bogus, repetitive listings or fraud for that matter. A reputation system might go a long way and make people more accountable.

Apparently you have no memories of how ebay was before they started charging for listings. I have. It wasn't pretty.

When ebay started charging, the howls and cries for boycott were loud and numerous, but fact is, the quality of the listings soared, and ebay's competitors did not profit; instead, they disappeared one by one.

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#42

Post by jerf »

TravisLS wrote: post #39

No objection to the usability assertions, but there's a huge problem with this idea that Craigslist will now always control the classifieds market no matter what they charge. This meme has caught on recently and it's time for it to die. It's not Craigslist's responsibility to provide journalism or to use their large size to extract profit and solve the world's problems. If Craigslist charged $1, users would immediate…

Yeah... the fundamental cost of classified ads isn't zero, but is so close to it that anybody who tries to charge $1 will have trouble with the ones who do it for free. That's the way to think about it, really. Running classified ads for even a medium-sized city is something that quite a lot of us could toss together in a weekend, and with the correct choice of framework, we could get it to scale fairly well in another couple of weekends. There's not much challenge.

And per some conversations from a few months ago about how hard it is to replicate a full site like Stack Overflow, replicating Craigslist from a features point of view really does seem to be pretty easy. What you can't replicate overnight is the ubiquity of Craigslist; the fact that they cover the country, and that everyone, even very non-technical friends of mine, know what it is. Both of these could be overcome if Craigslist started charging too much. (Though if they stay the course I'm not sure how they could be defeated in any reasonable period of time.)

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#43

Post by patio11 »

buugs wrote: post #35

If Craigslist charged $1 dollar I would have a really good Idea for an ad based website.

craigslistrefugees.com : For when your listing isn't worth a buck!

Advertisers: Please contact us to be put in touch with our userbase of people who take the castaway things of people who are such tightwads they wouldn't pay $1 to list. They combined the technical savvy of eBay users, the purchasing power of MySpace users, and the commercial tolerance of Slashdot users! Your CPM campaigns have never seen anything like it!

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#44

Post by brazzy »

TravisLS wrote: post #39

No objection to the usability assertions, but there's a huge problem with this idea that Craigslist will now always control the classifieds market no matter what they charge. This meme has caught on recently and it's time for it to die. It's not Craigslist's responsibility to provide journalism or to use their large size to extract profit and solve the world's problems. If Craigslist charged $1, users would immediate…

If Craigslist charged $1, users would immediately flee to any new competing sites

People who post ads would, many of them. The question is whether people who read and answer ads also would, or whether the improved quality of ads would cause them to stay, making the competing sites unattractive due to the lack of an audience and finally forcing the posters to return to craigslist. This is what happened with ebay.

The question is not whether posting an ad is worth $1 to you, the question is whether having your ad read by enough people is - and for that to be true, enough people must find looking the ads on the site worth their time.

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#45

Post by makmanalp »

jerf wrote: post #42
TravisLS wrote: post #39

No objection to the usability assertions, but there's a huge problem with this idea that Craigslist will now always control the classifieds market no matter what they charge. This meme has caught on recently and it's time for it to die. It's not Craigslist's responsibility to provide journalism or to use their large size to extract profit and solve the world's problems. If Craigslist charged $1, users would immediate…

Yeah... the fundamental cost of classified ads isn't zero, but is so close to it that anybody who tries to charge $1 will have trouble with the ones who do it for free. That's the way to think about it, really. Running classified ads for even a medium-sized city is something that quite a lot of us could toss together in a weekend, and with the correct choice of framework, we could get it to scale fairly well in anoth…

>the fact that they cover the country, and that everyone, even very non-technical friends of mine, know what it is

That's why after you build the free version, you name it something similar, eg: freelist or joeslist. Now people get the gist of what it is just from the name, you can't be sued for copyright and you're a valid competitor.

Craigslist is undoubtedly a useful service but it's trivial to implement and the only reason to use craigslist over some competitor is because everyone else uses craigslist. If you place a barrier to entry, you lose customers unwilling to pay. If you lose customers, you lose other customers.

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#46

Post by ujibuip »

calambrac wrote: post #12

Gosh, all that sounds amazing. Let me blow your minds, though: what if CL cost two dollars? This is unbelievably weak. Godin's not exactly on a hot streak right now, is he?

It's almost impossible to charge $1 for something. As soon as you start charging you need, a secure site, a credit card processor, accountants, lawyers, tax accountants, tax lawyers - repeat for each state/province/country/jurisdiction.

You go from a company with a dozen programmers enjoying what you do to a company of 1000s of employees making sure you have met the requirements for an out of state advertiser in Nowheresville Ak

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#47

Post by showkiller »

It seems of late everyone is trying to improve on something that is obviously working. ie. Craigslist

Love it or hate it, it's working for them.

Why not examine why it is working so well and take some lessons, and build better products?

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#48

Post by ptomato »

ujibuip wrote: post #46
calambrac wrote: post #12

Gosh, all that sounds amazing. Let me blow your minds, though: what if CL cost two dollars? This is unbelievably weak. Godin's not exactly on a hot streak right now, is he?

It's almost impossible to charge $1 for something. As soon as you start charging you need, a secure site, a credit card processor, accountants, lawyers, tax accountants, tax lawyers - repeat for each state/province/country/jurisdiction. You go from a company with a dozen programmers enjoying what you do to a company of 1000s of employees making sure you have met the requirements for an out of state advertiser in Nowh…

But craigslist already does charge, for job postings in certain cities.

Re: If Craigslist cost $1

#50

Post by yesimahuman »

d4nt wrote: post #20
zaidf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's saying making it a buck will make CL a lot of money. OP is saying that may not happen. People might move to another classifieds website in mass. CL might end up making a lot less money because less traffic = less price for paid sections of their site(ie. job sections in certain cities).

I think seth is saying a lot less ads will be placed, which will make the site nicer to use. Combine that added usability with the critical mass it already has and CL stay dominant and will make more money than it does currently.

I think he's wrong about it though. Honestly, craigslist hasn't failed me much. I rarely get spam or ads. When I need to sell something, it has always worked out. Part of the wonder of craigslist is that everyone has access to it. If they charged to post, some people wouldn't pay, and the community would suffer
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