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Classified ads, the bulwark upon which the newspaper business was built, was ultimately killed by craigslist, which turned all the papers into tabloids, because

Classified ads, the bulwark upon which the newspaper business was built, was ultimately killed by craigslist, which turned all the papers into tabloids, because they now had to compete for views/attention instead of the news being a side business carried on the shoulders of classified ads. Once the classified ad business went online, no one cared about subscribing to the physical newspaper anymore.

subpixel 4y ago
I long entertained an alternate reality where I was Craig Newmark and I invested in smaller local and regional newspapers, creating close synergies between their online operations and those of Craiglist. The plan would be to expect the collapse of print and to maintain strong local reporting operations buttressed by the power of the very tool that was killing their newspapers. Would it have stood up against Facebook Marketplace? Probably would not have gone completely according to plan at all. But the death of local reporting is something that people do not worry enough about and I remember Craig talking about.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  The real local reporting we now enjoy in the Bay Area (e.g. Cityside) is so much better than anything we got to read during the heyday of the Chronicle. I doubt that Newmark regrets killing the metastatic disease that was legacy newspapers.
  - subpixel 4y ago
    Cityside resembles my dreamy goal, except mine would be built around a revenue stream and could therefore (potentially) exist in middle America, where relying on donors wouldn't cut it for long. Thanks for the mention, I had never heard of them.
- nindalf 4y ago
  You miss the point of Craigslist. Sure, being online, persistent and searchable makes it superior to newspaper classifieds. But the real killer was that it was free. This meant it was easier to set up the 2 sided market. Folks were posting because there was no reason not to. This is what progress looks like, for better or worse. Someone takes an existing process/product/service and does it better and or cheaper. This opens up new economic opportunities because it lowers the barriers for entry into the market for sellers. They replace the incumbents but they don’t have the same revenue as the incumbents because they’re doing it for cheaper. Craigslist revenue was barely a fraction of what local papers were making.
  - subpixel 4y ago
    Craigslist had both free and paid categories, and I believe at its peak revenues would have supported the investments I'm imagining - especially in second and third tier markets. By the time these ideas came to me, most of these papers were on their knees, and already making hard cuts.
    - nindalf 4y ago
      That’s an extraordinary claim. Perhaps you’d back that up with some numbers?
      - subpixel 4y ago
        In 2008 Craigslist was worth $5 billion with revenues around $80 million. I worked for newspapers with losses on $1-5 million revenues. There were tons of investment opportunities and the publishers were up against a wall. Again not saying this was necessarily smart business but this is a fantasy remember?
        nindalf 4y ago
        A few newspapers making a few million in losses? Well, America has lost almost 1,800 papers since 2004, including more than 60 dailies and 1,700 weeklies. (Source: https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/loss-of-local-news/loss-newspapers-readers/ https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/...) So if each newspaper needed just $500k to stay afloat, we’re talking almost a billion dollars. Craigslist was making a tenth of that in revenue, according to you. Their profit was a fraction of that. I’m not criticising your dream. I’m criticising the people who advocate for this position in real life. “Tax/regulate tech! That’ll solve everything!”
- codazoda 4y ago
  I work for a company where this happened, the only one I'm aware of in the United States. What happened here, in Northern Utah, is that a local TV station created a classifieds product and put it online. The engineer's with the idea fought to provide it as a free service to the community and the TV station eventually agreed. It's no longer owned by the TV station but that business continues to thrive in spite of Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and all the other entrants into the market. I hope we can continue to keep it alive well into the future.
samatman 4y ago
I'd say the second sentence misses the mark. There were roughly no people who subscribed to newspapers only for classifieds. Buy one, sure, not everyone would have a subscription so they'd pick one up if job hunting or looking for a used couch. The problem was those people didn't want to pay the price a newspaper would have to charge, after losing their lucrative classified customers to a free alternative. The part where the Internet took over the role of the rest of the newspaper came after, as a feedback loop.

subpixel 4y ago

I long entertained an alternate reality where I was Craig Newmark and I invested in smaller local and regional newspapers, creating close synergies between their online operations and those of Craiglist. The plan would be to expect the collapse of print and to maintain strong local reporting operations buttressed by the power of the very tool that was killing their newspapers. Would it have stood up against Facebook Marketplace? Probably would not have gone completely according to plan at all. But the death of local reporting is something that people do not worry enough about and I remember Craig talking about.

jeffbee 4y ago
The real local reporting we now enjoy in the Bay Area (e.g. Cityside) is so much better than anything we got to read during the heyday of the Chronicle. I doubt that Newmark regrets killing the metastatic disease that was legacy newspapers.
- subpixel 4y ago
  Cityside resembles my dreamy goal, except mine would be built around a revenue stream and could therefore (potentially) exist in middle America, where relying on donors wouldn't cut it for long. Thanks for the mention, I had never heard of them.
nindalf 4y ago
You miss the point of Craigslist. Sure, being online, persistent and searchable makes it superior to newspaper classifieds. But the real killer was that it was free. This meant it was easier to set up the 2 sided market. Folks were posting because there was no reason not to. This is what progress looks like, for better or worse. Someone takes an existing process/product/service and does it better and or cheaper. This opens up new economic opportunities because it lowers the barriers for entry into the market for sellers. They replace the incumbents but they don’t have the same revenue as the incumbents because they’re doing it for cheaper. Craigslist revenue was barely a fraction of what local papers were making.
- subpixel 4y ago
  Craigslist had both free and paid categories, and I believe at its peak revenues would have supported the investments I'm imagining - especially in second and third tier markets. By the time these ideas came to me, most of these papers were on their knees, and already making hard cuts.
  - nindalf 4y ago
    That’s an extraordinary claim. Perhaps you’d back that up with some numbers?
    - subpixel 4y ago
      In 2008 Craigslist was worth $5 billion with revenues around $80 million. I worked for newspapers with losses on $1-5 million revenues. There were tons of investment opportunities and the publishers were up against a wall. Again not saying this was necessarily smart business but this is a fantasy remember?
      - nindalf 4y ago
        A few newspapers making a few million in losses? Well, America has lost almost 1,800 papers since 2004, including more than 60 dailies and 1,700 weeklies. (Source: https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/loss-of-local-news/loss-newspapers-readers/ https://www.usnewsdeserts.com/reports/expanding-news-desert/...) So if each newspaper needed just $500k to stay afloat, we’re talking almost a billion dollars. Craigslist was making a tenth of that in revenue, according to you. Their profit was a fraction of that. I’m not criticising your dream. I’m criticising the people who advocate for this position in real life. “Tax/regulate tech! That’ll solve everything!”
codazoda 4y ago
I work for a company where this happened, the only one I'm aware of in the United States. What happened here, in Northern Utah, is that a local TV station created a classifieds product and put it online. The engineer's with the idea fought to provide it as a free service to the community and the TV station eventually agreed. It's no longer owned by the TV station but that business continues to thrive in spite of Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and all the other entrants into the market. I hope we can continue to keep it alive well into the future.

samatman 4y ago

I'd say the second sentence misses the mark. There were roughly no people who subscribed to newspapers only for classifieds. Buy one, sure, not everyone would have a subscription so they'd pick one up if job hunting or looking for a used couch. The problem was those people didn't want to pay the price a newspaper would have to charge, after losing their lucrative classified customers to a free alternative. The part where the Internet took over the role of the rest of the newspaper came after, as a feedback loop.