Because it’s effective and works.
Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
301–310 of 335 posts
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
CL is still alive and well here in LA. It's possible it's just in the markets I'm looking in (tools, machinery, cars, etc), but I've always preferred it over things like FB, OfferUp etc. I feel like the people I meet from CL are generally much more knowledgeable about what they have and its value. Other platforms often feel like a relative selling grandpa's stuff and have done the bare minimum of research to find a p…
I think it's the certain markets that determine how useful CL is--I'm also in LA. I've mainly dealt in furniture & electronics, and CL in other cities, particularly Minneapolis, was a dream, so good in fact that I didn't know FB marketplace existed until I moved to LA and had to look elsewhere after seeing how bad the CL market for used stuff was.
The musical instruments page for Dallas-Fort Worth gets about 3-5 pages a day of valid new postings.
I went down to San Antonio and there were about 5 a week during the same relative time period. Thus I validate the notion that it’s market dependent. SA is not a tech hotspot but there are a lot of musicians there.
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#303I hate FB Marketplace. It's actively hostile to buyers. Like, try to find a "kinda nice" bicycle. You can't find the bicycle category (though it does exist as a sub-group of Sporting Goods), you can't just say "show me bikes" unless you hack the URL, you can search for the word "bicycle" but for some reason people selling a "Specialized Rockhopper" think you know it's a bicycle so don't use that word. Oh, and when se…
It surprises me how much companies fail at the basics of online shopping.. FB market is a garbage fire. They’re more interested in selling ads than making a market place. For new stuff Amazon is huge and cluttered yet still manages to run circles around almost every other online store for similar reasons to what you listed. The only exception I’ve found is BH Photo and Video. But all the others like Walmart/Jet, Home…
I feel like their product development began with the question "how can we sell more ads" instead of "how can we make a good marketplace"?
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Until about... 5-6 years ago That kinda correlates to when they moved away from the personals business
CL personals had a seedy rep (maybe with good reason), but I found it to be undervalued as a straight-up friend-making and normal dating tool. It's the only platform I've seen that focused primarily on text instead of photos, which was a unique niche and opportunity. People seem to gravitate towards photo-focused swipe-to-date apps... but most women and a bigger majority of men will tell you that they all hate them a…
> It's the only platform I've seen that focused primarily on text instead of photos, which was a unique niche and opportunity.
I have created such a platform since CL killed their personals and you can find it in my account history. Since I've already mentioned it once in this discussion I'd rather not do so again lest I be mistaken for a lowly shill.
Photos are not permitted in posts for multiple reasons. One is to emphasize the content of the post body. (Another reason is that I don't have the wherewithal to vet whether any given photo depicts someone of 17 or 18 years' age but I digress.)
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#305It probably looks the same because it doesn’t need to look different. And it seems CL wasn’t enticed by the cult of money that is Silicon Valley. Thus, their organization was not taken over by countless layers of middle management attempting to justify their own existence by adding a bunch of useless features.
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try to find a used computer or phone or really any other electronic. FB Marketplace has 5x the inventory.
Facebook's interface is heavily burdened with ugly templates, is needlessly complex and clunky. Page crashes! Facebook is also draconian about logging in, can't see much if you're not logged in, thus FB is elitist. You're required to you hand over your identity and submit to forced content and advertising. I personally fully retreated from Facebook permanently by 2009. Good for you, if you don't mind giving up privac…
Facebook also does aggressively fuzzy searching. I was in the market for a sailboat last year, and knew pretty specifically what I wanted. Facebook would always be about 50% what my specific search term was, and then 50% barely related bullshit (wrong brand / size, sailing accessories, powerboats)
I've also found Facebook exceptionally flaky from both the seller and buyer side. I don't usually expect responses on half the stuff I'm interested in on Facebook, and it's almost impossible to even give stuff away with the flakiness of people actually showing up to pick it up.
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#307I still use CL, after I try NextDoor (and less often, eBay). Many of the scammers are pretty easy to spot: they say "my agent will pick it up and give you a cashier's check (or money order)." I think CL could easily make it harder for the scammers, with minimal effort. For the ghosting buyers: this isn't just limited to CL. On the last item, I was giving something away on NextDoor, and still had around 8 ghosts. What…
I've found better success with asking for something insignificant like 10$ when I just want to get rid of something. It weeds out the flakes and maybe gets the "buyer" more invested in the deal
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#308I rent a couple of properties out in the bay area and up until this year I've always relied on craigslist to get new tenants, but this year we tried out Zillow and we got tons of applicants, and the whole application process including vetting and setting up a lease and everything was done through Zillow. On the other hand someone noticed our Zillow listing and created a fraudulent listing of my property on Craigslist…
Craigslist is the only thing I have ever needed to rent out our condo for more than a decade. Long may it live! I'll also plug ezLandlordForms for everything else, inc. applications and background checks and contracts and yada yada.
Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#309Re: Why Craigslist still looks the same after 25 years
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really, really like Facebook Marketplace's fuzzy searching. Random people listing stuff on local classified sites don't always use the correct keywords, and it's in everyone's best interest for these listings to actually get a good amount of views. I suspect this "fuzzier" algorithm accounts for the far lower amount of spam too. A search for "heat pump dryer" on Gumtree will return 25 listings in a row from the sam…
I think it depends how specific your buying is. If I'm searching for Scooter, it may be good that it returns also mopeds and motorcycles. But if I'm searching for Nikon d850, and get first 10 entries for Nikon d750, Nikon d610, canon 5dMkii, Sony rx100, and then finally a d850, then its really really annoying; and that's 80 percent of my experience. For the other 20 percent, When I do want to search for something gen…
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