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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 wer

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 lazy and selfish, and nobody can do anything about it because..network effects. When money exchanges hands, generally, value is being delivered. He refuses money which, in essence, equates to refusing to deliver value.

Analemma_ 10y ago
Put down the Ayn Rand and go outside.
- dalbasal 10y ago
  I don't think Ayn Rand would object to craigslist.
Animats 10y ago
Craigslist is quite profitable. It just doesn't overdo it.
fnovd 10y ago
Or perhaps Craig simply understands his business better than you do. Are the loudest users the ones providing him with the most profit? If not, then why not ignore them? Would being involved as a true middleman leave them more open to liability when things go south? If so, why open yourself to that risk if you are already making profit? If you really think CL is so under-utilized, why hasn't a larger company bought them out, improved the site, and raked in increased profit?
- bargh1920 10y ago
  Take a look at Ebay's acquisition attempt on CL. CL wasn't interested. Also, it's not about listening to loud users. It's about understanding whether your users (any of them) are willing to pay you to improve the site. And, the answer to that is a resounding yes.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    If no one has unseated CL yet, isn't the answer a resounding no?
  - pilom 10y ago
    I have seen no proof that users are willing to pay to improve craigslist. I like it just the way it is. It's like a unix tool, it does one thing and does it really well. If you wanted it prettier, you could make a browser extension to change the UI. What other changes could they make that wouldn't decrease it's value for other current users?
phil21 10y ago
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 people. The happiest folks I've met in my life are those who own the "lifestyle businesses" everyone on HN enjoys deriding so much. Isn't Craig living the hacker's dream? A reasonably useful service that provides value to customer, that once built you don't have to put much effort into maintaining or improving - because it works. Then you spend the rest of your free time on the beach. You also get the nice side benefit that most guys like this tend to provide relatively low-stress long-term jobs employees can build a balanced life around.
- smallgovt 10y ago
  This is sort of my point... Don't get me wrong, he has every right to run his business in any way he so desires. And, who am I to pass judgement on him for this? I'm just saying that we shouldn't see this sort of decision making as 'honorable' or 'selfless' in any sense. It's the opposite, in a way.
  - phil21 10y ago
    I think it's a lot more honorable and selfless than trying to blow it up with a huge round of VC funding and turn it into the next ad-funded unicorn. Why found a company just to turn into the same exact companies you tried to get away from? But I also completely agree that's subjective, and there really is no morality here. It's simple personal preference.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- bredren 10y ago
  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 app that worked well. Or a hundred other things that would improve lives. There is no question craigslist gets a "job well done" but there is a great argument that if they have a choke hold on the online classifieds market they should offer increased value over time. Craigslist reminds me of the IRS. Sure, you can fumble your way through filing your taxes with us, but why would you do that when TurboTax can do it better. Except there is no alternative. I think Craigslist is acting more like the old newspaper classifieds they disrupted if anything. Despite this article's focus on a couple companies, there are other startups getting major traction in used goods space apart from Facebook. If CL loses significant market share, I hope they don't go trying then to revamp the site. Because it would only be that much more obvious how much they held back from their users for so long.
ska 10y ago
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. After all, many of the "innovations" suggested in the comments here have actually been tried by other services - ones that on average have not succeeded nearly as well as CL. Some of which were pretty terrible. You can interpret this as due to network effect, or due to CL just providing more value, or some mix. But you have to at least accept the possibility that the other views are correct. It's easy to point at feature "A" in something like CL and say "I can make that better by just doing B". It's a lot harder to understand the effect of "B" across a large, diverse, heterogeneous user population. Maybe CL just hasn't seen a compelling improvement yet?
- tempestn 10y ago
  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.
  - ska 10y ago
    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.
  - pilom 10y ago
    This seems like a bad example. There is no money at all for them to make an API and it wouldn't get more people coming to craigslist.com. At the same time it would require additional server resources. So why bother?
christophilus 10y ago
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. :)
marssaxman 10y ago
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.
- 8note 10y ago
  They've added one good feature, not too long ago: a map view for housing
pilom 10y ago
On the contrary, I think they have literally made the perfect site for what they do. I like it ugly because it is also FAST!!! I have no UI qualms at all about it. Any change they made would make me less likely to use the site. What exactly would you like them to spend $300 million a year on "improving?"
ionised 10y ago
This is such a warped point of view to me.
loco5niner 10y ago
> 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! Wrong. So many useful sites have been ruined because someone decided to hire a bunch of MBA's to make it better (and increase profit). It's successful, and it's wonderful. Just leave it alone. I can't deny the possibility of laziness (from what I've heard of Craig I very much doubt it), but it is certainly not selfish. > He refuses money which, in essence, equates to refusing to deliver value Ha! quite a ridiculous statement there.

Analemma_ 10y ago

Put down the Ayn Rand and go outside.

dalbasal 10y ago
I don't think Ayn Rand would object to craigslist.

Animats 10y ago

Craigslist is quite profitable. It just doesn't overdo it.

fnovd 10y ago

Or perhaps Craig simply understands his business better than you do. Are the loudest users the ones providing him with the most profit? If not, then why not ignore them? Would being involved as a true middleman leave them more open to liability when things go south? If so, why open yourself to that risk if you are already making profit? If you really think CL is so under-utilized, why hasn't a larger company bought them out, improved the site, and raked in increased profit?

bargh1920 10y ago
Take a look at Ebay's acquisition attempt on CL. CL wasn't interested. Also, it's not about listening to loud users. It's about understanding whether your users (any of them) are willing to pay you to improve the site. And, the answer to that is a resounding yes.
- dv_dt 10y ago
  If no one has unseated CL yet, isn't the answer a resounding no?
- pilom 10y ago
  I have seen no proof that users are willing to pay to improve craigslist. I like it just the way it is. It's like a unix tool, it does one thing and does it really well. If you wanted it prettier, you could make a browser extension to change the UI. What other changes could they make that wouldn't decrease it's value for other current users?

phil21 10y ago

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 people. The happiest folks I've met in my life are those who own the "lifestyle businesses" everyone on HN enjoys deriding so much. Isn't Craig living the hacker's dream? A reasonably useful service that provides value to customer, that once built you don't have to put much effort into maintaining or improving - because it works. Then you spend the rest of your free time on the beach. You also get the nice side benefit that most guys like this tend to provide relatively low-stress long-term jobs employees can build a balanced life around.

smallgovt 10y ago
This is sort of my point... Don't get me wrong, he has every right to run his business in any way he so desires. And, who am I to pass judgement on him for this? I'm just saying that we shouldn't see this sort of decision making as 'honorable' or 'selfless' in any sense. It's the opposite, in a way.
- phil21 10y ago
  I think it's a lot more honorable and selfless than trying to blow it up with a huge round of VC funding and turn it into the next ad-funded unicorn. Why found a company just to turn into the same exact companies you tried to get away from? But I also completely agree that's subjective, and there really is no morality here. It's simple personal preference.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
bredren 10y ago
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 app that worked well. Or a hundred other things that would improve lives. There is no question craigslist gets a "job well done" but there is a great argument that if they have a choke hold on the online classifieds market they should offer increased value over time. Craigslist reminds me of the IRS. Sure, you can fumble your way through filing your taxes with us, but why would you do that when TurboTax can do it better. Except there is no alternative. I think Craigslist is acting more like the old newspaper classifieds they disrupted if anything. Despite this article's focus on a couple companies, there are other startups getting major traction in used goods space apart from Facebook. If CL loses significant market share, I hope they don't go trying then to revamp the site. Because it would only be that much more obvious how much they held back from their users for so long.

ska 10y ago

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. After all, many of the "innovations" suggested in the comments here have actually been tried by other services - ones that on average have not succeeded nearly as well as CL. Some of which were pretty terrible. You can interpret this as due to network effect, or due to CL just providing more value, or some mix. But you have to at least accept the possibility that the other views are correct. It's easy to point at feature "A" in something like CL and say "I can make that better by just doing B". It's a lot harder to understand the effect of "B" across a large, diverse, heterogeneous user population. Maybe CL just hasn't seen a compelling improvement yet?

tempestn 10y ago
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.
- ska 10y ago
  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.
- pilom 10y ago
  This seems like a bad example. There is no money at all for them to make an API and it wouldn't get more people coming to craigslist.com. At the same time it would require additional server resources. So why bother?

christophilus 10y ago

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. :)

marssaxman 10y ago

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.

8note 10y ago
They've added one good feature, not too long ago: a map view for housing

pilom 10y ago

On the contrary, I think they have literally made the perfect site for what they do. I like it ugly because it is also FAST!!! I have no UI qualms at all about it. Any change they made would make me less likely to use the site. What exactly would you like them to spend $300 million a year on "improving?"

ionised 10y ago

This is such a warped point of view to me.

loco5niner 10y ago

> 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! Wrong. So many useful sites have been ruined because someone decided to hire a bunch of MBA's to make it better (and increase profit). It's successful, and it's wonderful. Just leave it alone. I can't deny the possibility of laziness (from what I've heard of Craig I very much doubt it), but it is certainly not selfish. > He refuses money which, in essence, equates to refusing to deliver value Ha! quite a ridiculous statement there.