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> The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years. I actually found some great rugs (owners did not know what the

> The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years. I actually found some great rugs (owners did not know what they had!) and furniture on the FB marketplace. Much better finds than on craigslist, and easier to verify that the seller is a human.

oooooooooo000 8y ago
Indeed. There sure are a lot of accusations of FB lying in these comments, but it seems people have no problem upvoting much more obvious lies like "FB hasn't launched any new features in 2 years". Whatever fits the HN narrative goes, I guess.
- rhcom2 8y ago
  Slightly pedantic but Facebook Marketplace was launched in 2016 so the point could still stand.
  - oooooooooo000 8y ago
    The point doesn't still stand, but I'll save you all the googling: FB launched Watch on August 9, 2017. You could also say "only in the last year" and it'd be easy to find something else with 2 minutes of googling.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Oh Zuck, don't feel bad. You still have lots of money and a beautiful family.
    - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
      He said interesting feature.
- asveikau 8y ago
  Relax dear facebook employee, go treat yourself to a burrito at Teddy's or something from the Sweet Shop.
jdfellow 8y ago
I'll second the notion of Facebook Marketplace being a good new feature. You can even pay the seller in-app, which is handy.
Spooky23 8y ago
Agreed. Craigslist was tainted by the unsavory element of prostitution and stolen goods and isn’t a resource that I seek out. Facebook marketplaces seem like what eBay was in the 90s.
- magduf 8y ago
  If I'm buying a used piece of furniture or whatever, I don't give a shit about prostitution going on elsewhere on the site. What's really hurt Craigslist is all the scammers. You can't post anything of value on there without some scammer responding and telling you they're going to send you a cashier's check and have a personal assistant pick it up. You don't have this problem at all on Facebook AFAICT. When someone responds to your ad on Facebook Marketplace, it's a real person who actually wants to buy your old junk.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    The scammers aren’t there because of prostitution, both categories are there because Craigslist attracts unsavory parties and does little or nothing to police them.
    - magduf 8y ago
      No, that's not correct at all. The difference is that Craigslist has no real accounts. When you get a response to your CL ad, even if the responder has a CL account, you don't see this, you just get a text message or phone call or email. With FB, everything is through the site because of the way it's centralized, and you can see the account and full name of the person who's contacting you. On CL, it's trivial for scammers to respond to ads with automated programs, but on FB they'd have to create a real-looking fake account in your area, complete with pictures, some kind of history, etc., which is a far greater undertaking. In short, the formats of the sites make all the difference. CL was created to preserve anonymity and not be a centralized social network, but that feature is also its undoing because it facilitates scamming.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Craigslist was tainted by the unsavory element of prostitution and stolen goods and isn’t a resource that I seek out. IME, Facebook Marketplace is far from free of scams and stolen merchandise. That's why some people call it Fencebook.
shadowbannedtoo 8y ago
The Page/Group feature is nice, especially if you don't have many friends. I wish it wasen't though. I don't like the company. Oh yea, I've never used my real name on FB. I do have a Page that's getting some traction, but I don't know if I want to use my real name. In all honestly, I think the people who like my Page are just being nice. The "likes" are all comming from one war torn country? (Oh yea, I'm to lazy to go to my desktop(incognito mode), and see if I'm still shadow banned. Please up-vote/down-vote me if you happen to see this. I must have pissed off the dong? I still think about the email I got from HN. It was basically get lost. I don't think I'm that bad, but I was irritating HN?)
DanTheManPR 8y ago
I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist. It's an odd platform. They have a lot of great features for outreach and discovery of local events and groups of people, leveraged by the strong network effect. For contact with local groups of people with similar interests, and for planning events, for group communication, it is an effective tool and one that has enriched my life in substantial ways. The one thing that I really hate is the front page feed. It was probably a great business decision on their part to emphasize microblogging, as it definitely increased engagement in the platform. It also turned everyone into memelords who just re-share funny cat pictures, pyramid schemes and incendiary political propaganda. I tried just filtering that out with the "see fewer posts like this", but I turns out that people just don't really post anything but image macros and articles anymore.
- drdeadringer 8y ago
  > I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist. If you've tried it, how do you think Facebook's classifieds compare to NextDoor's classifieds?

oooooooooo000 8y ago

Indeed. There sure are a lot of accusations of FB lying in these comments, but it seems people have no problem upvoting much more obvious lies like "FB hasn't launched any new features in 2 years". Whatever fits the HN narrative goes, I guess.

rhcom2 8y ago
Slightly pedantic but Facebook Marketplace was launched in 2016 so the point could still stand.
- oooooooooo000 8y ago
  The point doesn't still stand, but I'll save you all the googling: FB launched Watch on August 9, 2017. You could also say "only in the last year" and it'd be easy to find something else with 2 minutes of googling.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Oh Zuck, don't feel bad. You still have lots of money and a beautiful family.
  - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
    He said interesting feature.
asveikau 8y ago
Relax dear facebook employee, go treat yourself to a burrito at Teddy's or something from the Sweet Shop.

jdfellow 8y ago

I'll second the notion of Facebook Marketplace being a good new feature. You can even pay the seller in-app, which is handy.

Spooky23 8y ago

Agreed. Craigslist was tainted by the unsavory element of prostitution and stolen goods and isn’t a resource that I seek out. Facebook marketplaces seem like what eBay was in the 90s.

magduf 8y ago
If I'm buying a used piece of furniture or whatever, I don't give a shit about prostitution going on elsewhere on the site. What's really hurt Craigslist is all the scammers. You can't post anything of value on there without some scammer responding and telling you they're going to send you a cashier's check and have a personal assistant pick it up. You don't have this problem at all on Facebook AFAICT. When someone responds to your ad on Facebook Marketplace, it's a real person who actually wants to buy your old junk.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  The scammers aren’t there because of prostitution, both categories are there because Craigslist attracts unsavory parties and does little or nothing to police them.
  - magduf 8y ago
    No, that's not correct at all. The difference is that Craigslist has no real accounts. When you get a response to your CL ad, even if the responder has a CL account, you don't see this, you just get a text message or phone call or email. With FB, everything is through the site because of the way it's centralized, and you can see the account and full name of the person who's contacting you. On CL, it's trivial for scammers to respond to ads with automated programs, but on FB they'd have to create a real-looking fake account in your area, complete with pictures, some kind of history, etc., which is a far greater undertaking. In short, the formats of the sites make all the difference. CL was created to preserve anonymity and not be a centralized social network, but that feature is also its undoing because it facilitates scamming.
reaperducer 8y ago
Craigslist was tainted by the unsavory element of prostitution and stolen goods and isn’t a resource that I seek out. IME, Facebook Marketplace is far from free of scams and stolen merchandise. That's why some people call it Fencebook.

shadowbannedtoo 8y ago

The Page/Group feature is nice, especially if you don't have many friends. I wish it wasen't though. I don't like the company. Oh yea, I've never used my real name on FB. I do have a Page that's getting some traction, but I don't know if I want to use my real name. In all honestly, I think the people who like my Page are just being nice. The "likes" are all comming from one war torn country? (Oh yea, I'm to lazy to go to my desktop(incognito mode), and see if I'm still shadow banned. Please up-vote/down-vote me if you happen to see this. I must have pissed off the dong? I still think about the email I got from HN. It was basically get lost. I don't think I'm that bad, but I was irritating HN?)

DanTheManPR 8y ago

I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist. It's an odd platform. They have a lot of great features for outreach and discovery of local events and groups of people, leveraged by the strong network effect. For contact with local groups of people with similar interests, and for planning events, for group communication, it is an effective tool and one that has enriched my life in substantial ways. The one thing that I really hate is the front page feed. It was probably a great business decision on their part to emphasize microblogging, as it definitely increased engagement in the platform. It also turned everyone into memelords who just re-share funny cat pictures, pyramid schemes and incendiary political propaganda. I tried just filtering that out with the "see fewer posts like this", but I turns out that people just don't really post anything but image macros and articles anymore.

drdeadringer 8y ago
> I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist. If you've tried it, how do you think Facebook's classifieds compare to NextDoor's classifieds?