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Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

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Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#31
People here on HN often make comments about the dangers of building your business/app/service on top someone else's business/app/service (be it Twitter, FB, etc.).

If your app depends on Yahoo! Pipes AND Craigslist, well ... that's probably extra dangerous.

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#32
This is not the first time a site has been shut down when an enthusiastic developer emailed Craig saying "Hey check out what I built!"

...nor will it be the last I suspect.

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#33
Perhaps it's as simple as CL has no way of determining who is on the other side of the pipe. In Craig's quoted statement about RSS feeds, it seems that they are concerned about commercial use of CL data. If Yahoo Pipes essentially masks the origin of the request, then it makes CL's job more difficult.

As for determining motive -- profit or otherwise -- I suspect it's more about keeping others' greedy mitts off their community than cold cash. CL has been about the community of people using it since it was just a mailing list, and publicly Craig and Craigslist have been pretty clear about what they value. So, they probably see pipes as a threat to that community.

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#35
post #34
post #32

This is not the first time a site has been shut down when an enthusiastic developer emailed Craig saying "Hey check out what I built!" ...nor will it be the last I suspect.

References? [Edit:] Thanks!

A close friend... he asked me not to use his name.

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#36
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You honestly think they're in it for the money?

What sounds like a more likely explanation for them blocking yahoo pipes? 1) They make a lot of money and want to continue doing so, and feel threatened by third party services that disintermediate them. 2) Craig is "strange" 3) Craig is "evil" There are of course other possible explanations: 4) Craigslist RSS server runs on a Pentium w/ 256MB of memory and can't scale 5) Someone at Yahoo stole Craig's girlfriend so…

maybe he just likes being in control?

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#38

For the life of me, I can't understand why craigslist has had this mentality. I basically have to chalk it up to Craig being stubborn. He was burned by ebay grabbing 20%, he hasn't changed the design ever, and may constantly live in fear of being co-opted by the man. But like it or not, Craigslist is the man. And when your users go out of their way to create pieces of software that actually improve the experience for…

Craigslist nets tens of millions in profits each year, most of which I would assume ends up eventually in Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster's personal bank accounts. I would guess they are operating under the principle of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

I'm pretty sure a lot of the money goes to: http://craigslistfoundation.org/

I'm also pretty sure they only charge when the community begs for it (apartment listings in major cities, as a barrier to keep out spam) and are legally obligated (escort services, http://www.seattlepi.com/business/386655_craigslist07.html)

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#39

For the life of me, I can't understand why craigslist has had this mentality. I basically have to chalk it up to Craig being stubborn. He was burned by ebay grabbing 20%, he hasn't changed the design ever, and may constantly live in fear of being co-opted by the man. But like it or not, Craigslist is the man. And when your users go out of their way to create pieces of software that actually improve the experience for…

Craigslist nets tens of millions in profits each year, most of which I would assume ends up eventually in Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster's personal bank accounts. I would guess they are operating under the principle of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

It's very clear that their primary motivation is not money. It would be trivial for them to squeeze much more money from their service. Craig could also sell his company for more money than he could ever spend.

Re: Craigslist blocks Yahoo Pipes

#40

It hurts me when people chose to keep things broken (Craigslist) for irrational reasons, especially when it wastes hours of time for millions of people.

their decision seems perfectly rational. if services like this one become popular, they are a huge threat to their business. they're not morally obligated to provide unfettered access to their data to anyone who wants it- i fail to see how it is "broken"

Their data? The data should belong to the people that produce the content Not the people that host it.

Craigslist gains value from it's users not they other way around.

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