3 ms·

> Edit: How could a company like Facebook ship such a slow and complex product, with little to no support, for so many years? Where did the FAANG Product Manage

by voisin 5y ago

> Edit: How could a company like Facebook ship such a slow and complex product, with little to no support, for so many years? Where did the FAANG Product Management quality go? And why the hell did consumers adopt this “experience” over the robust incumbents? In Canada, Kijiji was and is 10x better. In the US, Craigslist.

talhof8 5y ago
Truly a great question. Personally, I'm trying out other local alternatives, but my listings won't seem to get the same traction.
- voisin 5y ago
  I agree. This is the issue. Now when I look for something I have to use FB because all the sellers have moved there because all the buyers have moved there. It is a great market in that regard as it is hard to turn that flywheel back. But it sucks for consumers.
  - talhof8 5y ago
    I wish a good alternative will rise soon enough that'll attract more sellers. Perhaps going deeper, by niche would play out better in terms of other marketplaces competing with Facebook?
cinntaile 5y ago
Free listings and basically the same customers is hard to beat.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  They need to charge for listings but FB is afraid to charge users for anything. All they care about is engagement and lock-in. The FBMP experience is horrid.
mooxie 5y ago
I've done a lot of a relatively high-value item (motorcycles, cars) buying and selling on Facebook and Craigslist, and let me assure you: people didn't move to Facebook because Craigslist was a 'robust incumbent.' As a seller, I am guaranteed to get 10-20 scam messages in the first 24h of my post on Craigslist; text, email, and phone. God forbid you were bold/stupid enough to put your real information in there. You have to use burners or congratulations, you've signed up for a lifetime of scam calls. Facebook Marketplace has many faults, but it is relatively easy-to-use, has a wide audience, attracts more serious buyers in my experience, has low spam/scam volume, actually attempts to address scammers (albeit cumbersomely; this is still a differentiator from CL) and allows me to know something about who I am trying to make a deal with. Marketplace is succeeding despite its faults precisely because the other options are generally such terrible experiences.
- zucked 5y ago
  As a BUYER, the FB marketplace experience is TERRIBLE. Seriously, it's beyond bad. Searching for an item gives you different listings every. single. time. It's a dice roll if the faceted search works. And that's on top of the usual cruft of selling online - the requisite "is this available?" and ghosting being the most annoying. I'm a member of several B/S groups and half the content is split between posts and marketplace items and searching between them is obnoxious. Full disclosure - I use the mobile web experience because I refuse to install the app. I would rather Craiglist 8 days a week, but because FB has the user already there, logged in, they've gained a lot of traction with a seriously inferior product.
- fuzzer37 5y ago
  I wonder if this depends on the location. I've never run into that issue. Sure, a couple here and there. But nothing where I would ever consider needing a burner number or felt like I was getting scammed. Although I've only sold maybe 10-20 items, so maybe I'm just lucky.
olyjohn 5y ago
It's easy. Facebook already had the users. Nobody had to sign up for an account to sell on marketplace. You just go on, post shitty pics, add a shitty description. It sucks because Marketplace is such a piece of shit. The search doesn't work, it always interjects shit that you don't want. It doesn't find all items within certain search parameters, etc. About 1/20 times that I do a search, the entire page comes back blank, or with 30 sponsored listings and no actual results. It's the same reason that Facebook Groups took over for a lot of forums. Using a forum took some effort. You had to create an account, log in, upload photos to a host. You had to be really into it... and so a lot the low-quality shit was filtered out in the forums, just by being sort of hard to use. Now you just go on FB Groups make a shitty post with some shitty pics, no effort, thought or time has to be put in. Flooded with low-quality crap and repeat questions and topics. You go on the groups now, and the quantity of the same questions being asked over and over is ridiculous. The search sucks, Facebook Groups are trash. This is just like how Microsoft Teams came to be. It didn't get popular because it was a good product. It's literally one of the worst software applications that I have ever used. They already had the userbase (all the O365 subs), and gave it away. People take shitty and 'free' over good and costs money. Competition crushed.

by voisin 5y ago

talhof8 5y ago

Truly a great question. Personally, I'm trying out other local alternatives, but my listings won't seem to get the same traction.

voisin 5y ago
I agree. This is the issue. Now when I look for something I have to use FB because all the sellers have moved there because all the buyers have moved there. It is a great market in that regard as it is hard to turn that flywheel back. But it sucks for consumers.
- talhof8 5y ago
  I wish a good alternative will rise soon enough that'll attract more sellers. Perhaps going deeper, by niche would play out better in terms of other marketplaces competing with Facebook?

cinntaile 5y ago

Free listings and basically the same customers is hard to beat.

datavirtue 5y ago
They need to charge for listings but FB is afraid to charge users for anything. All they care about is engagement and lock-in. The FBMP experience is horrid.

mooxie 5y ago

I've done a lot of a relatively high-value item (motorcycles, cars) buying and selling on Facebook and Craigslist, and let me assure you: people didn't move to Facebook because Craigslist was a 'robust incumbent.' As a seller, I am guaranteed to get 10-20 scam messages in the first 24h of my post on Craigslist; text, email, and phone. God forbid you were bold/stupid enough to put your real information in there. You have to use burners or congratulations, you've signed up for a lifetime of scam calls. Facebook Marketplace has many faults, but it is relatively easy-to-use, has a wide audience, attracts more serious buyers in my experience, has low spam/scam volume, actually attempts to address scammers (albeit cumbersomely; this is still a differentiator from CL) and allows me to know something about who I am trying to make a deal with. Marketplace is succeeding despite its faults precisely because the other options are generally such terrible experiences.

zucked 5y ago
As a BUYER, the FB marketplace experience is TERRIBLE. Seriously, it's beyond bad. Searching for an item gives you different listings every. single. time. It's a dice roll if the faceted search works. And that's on top of the usual cruft of selling online - the requisite "is this available?" and ghosting being the most annoying. I'm a member of several B/S groups and half the content is split between posts and marketplace items and searching between them is obnoxious. Full disclosure - I use the mobile web experience because I refuse to install the app. I would rather Craiglist 8 days a week, but because FB has the user already there, logged in, they've gained a lot of traction with a seriously inferior product.
fuzzer37 5y ago
I wonder if this depends on the location. I've never run into that issue. Sure, a couple here and there. But nothing where I would ever consider needing a burner number or felt like I was getting scammed. Although I've only sold maybe 10-20 items, so maybe I'm just lucky.

olyjohn 5y ago

It's easy. Facebook already had the users. Nobody had to sign up for an account to sell on marketplace. You just go on, post shitty pics, add a shitty description. It sucks because Marketplace is such a piece of shit. The search doesn't work, it always interjects shit that you don't want. It doesn't find all items within certain search parameters, etc. About 1/20 times that I do a search, the entire page comes back blank, or with 30 sponsored listings and no actual results. It's the same reason that Facebook Groups took over for a lot of forums. Using a forum took some effort. You had to create an account, log in, upload photos to a host. You had to be really into it... and so a lot the low-quality shit was filtered out in the forums, just by being sort of hard to use. Now you just go on FB Groups make a shitty post with some shitty pics, no effort, thought or time has to be put in. Flooded with low-quality crap and repeat questions and topics. You go on the groups now, and the quantity of the same questions being asked over and over is ridiculous. The search sucks, Facebook Groups are trash. This is just like how Microsoft Teams came to be. It didn't get popular because it was a good product. It's literally one of the worst software applications that I have ever used. They already had the userbase (all the O365 subs), and gave it away. People take shitty and 'free' over good and costs money. Competition crushed.