Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

backchannel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 162 posts

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#51

Post by christophilus »

laurentdc wrote: post #17
grapevines wrote: post #3

Network effect, reliability, free, anonymous, ability to run without JavaScript. If Craigslist decided to modernize today, they could potentially disrupt the state of things on the internet. Facebook is trying to move in on their territory for sure. Unfortunately, I don't think they will. If a new-kid-on-the-block could offer anonymity, reliability, and free regional market based transactions, with preferably integra…

> ability to run without JavaScript. Genuinely asking - is that still an important quality as of today?

As mentioned elsewhere, the average user probably doesn't know or care about JavaScript. They do know and care about simplicity and speed. Not having JavaScript (or only very little) often positively affects speed. (See Hacker News vs Redis on mobile for an example of this.)

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#52

Post by fnovd »

bredren wrote: post #37
phil21 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now it's lazy and selfish to not take every ounce of surplus you can out of a market? Some folks just want to lay back and enjoy life. If I were Craig I'd sit on that goldmine for the rest of my life - most likely it will finance a very decent lifestyle until the day he dies. Why bother with the stress of expanding and doing what everyone else is doing? I'm completely convinced that strategy makes for miserable peopl…

The problem is not that CL isn't squeezing out every ounce revenue. The problem with the benevolent dictator at Craigslist is his kingdom is so big and he does nothing to advance it. It would not be hard to offer minor but relatively simple identity validation for users. Or dabble with the ability to create trust networks or reputation. Or offer basic mechanisms for safe transactional payments. Or an official mobile…

>It would not be hard to offer minor but relatively simple identity validation for users. Or dabble with the ability to create trust networks or reputation. Or offer basic mechanisms for safe transactional payments.

And when users are lulled into a false sense of security from these changes, who is all of a sudden liable when things go south? CL being barebones is a feature, not a bug.

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#53

Post by christophilus »

smallgovt wrote: post #8

I find it interesting that there's a general undertone that CL is being "honorable" by choosing to not make more profit. I have no doubt Craig's intentions were honorable, but in reality, his refusal to make money to fund the site's innovation is hurting society. His users are screaming "TAKE MY MONEY AND MAKE THE SITE (MY LIFE) BETTER", but he refuses to do so and everyone is worse off because of it! In a way, it's…

Are users screaming that? I like Craigs List as is. To me, it's sort of the classified equivalent of Hacker News. Minimalist, fast, gets the job done, not cluttered, not encumbered with useless junk (other than the listings. :)

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#55

Post by tempestn »

ska wrote: post #49
smallgovt wrote: post #8

I find it interesting that there's a general undertone that CL is being "honorable" by choosing to not make more profit. I have no doubt Craig's intentions were honorable, but in reality, his refusal to make money to fund the site's innovation is hurting society. His users are screaming "TAKE MY MONEY AND MAKE THE SITE (MY LIFE) BETTER", but he refuses to do so and everyone is worse off because of it! In a way, it's…

Moving a product in the direction of higher profit, and even more starkly, more revenue, is not at all the same thing as moving in the direction of higher value. This is often mistakenly conflated. Another possibility is that CL has reached a local maxima and they can't see an easy way out of it that isn't actually reducing (globally) value to their customers. I'm somewhat playing devils advocate but it is plausible.…

One improvement they could make that seems like an unambiguous win for society would be an open API. That way they could continue to run the site however they like, but people interested in other experiences could seek them out as well. I can see why a business might prefer to keep a monopoly on their data (although there are business advantages to providing an API as well), but I can't see any argument from a purely user-focused perspective. Obviously I'm biased, but (for instance) the response to padmapper didn't seem to be about maximizing value for users.

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#56

Post by marssaxman »

smallgovt wrote: post #8

I find it interesting that there's a general undertone that CL is being "honorable" by choosing to not make more profit. I have no doubt Craig's intentions were honorable, but in reality, his refusal to make money to fund the site's innovation is hurting society. His users are screaming "TAKE MY MONEY AND MAKE THE SITE (MY LIFE) BETTER", but he refuses to do so and everyone is worse off because of it! In a way, it's…

I'm really glad they're not making the site "better", because it works fine the way it is. Making it "better" these days would clutter it up with a ton of unnecessary graphics and scripty whooshy hover widgets that pop up over whatever it is you're actually trying to do after wasting a whole bunch of load time pulling in 10+ MB of Javascript from god knows where.

It works, and I'm really glad they're leaving it that way.

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#57

Post by cmrdporcupine »

erik wrote: post #42
codingdave wrote: post #7

It isn't universal, though. One of the things you find if you move to Utah is, "Don't bother with Craigslist." I mean, it exists here. It gets some use. But most people use the online classifieds from ksl.com, the local TV station. At least, I think it is a TV station. I've never watched it, but everyone uses their online classifieds instead of craigslist. Their site also is ugly, and full of difficult buyers and poo…

Similarly, Kijiji actually found success in Canada, and has quite a bit more traffic than Craigslist for most cities here.

Yeah, so I never used kijiji until I moved out of Toronto. Within metro Toronto proper craigslist seems to be used more? Or hast that changed.

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#58

Post by ska »

tempestn wrote: post #55
ska wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving a product in the direction of higher profit, and even more starkly, more revenue, is not at all the same thing as moving in the direction of higher value. This is often mistakenly conflated. Another possibility is that CL has reached a local maxima and they can't see an easy way out of it that isn't actually reducing (globally) value to their customers. I'm somewhat playing devils advocate but it is plausible.…

One improvement they could make that seems like an unambiguous win for society would be an open API. That way they could continue to run the site however they like, but people interested in other experiences could seek them out as well. I can see why a business might prefer to keep a monopoly on their data (although there are business advantages to providing an API as well), but I can't see any argument from a purely…

Yes, I'm not really claiming (I hope obviously) that CL simply can't be improved from the point of view of their users .

Rather, I'm objecting to the "naive economist" approach being touted as clear evidence of, well, anything really.

Re: Craigslist Is Ugly, Janky, Old School, and Unbeatable

#59

Post by anonu »

This [1] is a bit dated - maybe from 2014 - but still quite relevant to this discussion. Some new entrants have made their way in like AptDeco - and some have fallen off. Overall, there is still tons of opportunities to supplant Craigslist piece-by-piece.

[1] http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4dd4d1cf4bd7c8c90f0...

Post reply on HN