I for one, commend Craigslist for their commitment to maintaining a strict, consistent, well-defined UI and moreover, for choosing to maintain a relatively mode

I for one, commend Craigslist for their commitment to maintaining a strict, consistent, well-defined UI and moreover, for choosing to maintain a relatively modest operation to the benefit of their core users instead of succumbing to the promises of riches that so often end up ruining great services created by the Tech Community. Many of you are saying this is detrimental to consumers, and it may be in the short term, because services like PadMapper really do provide a better experience. But in the long-term, things seem to be much different. Too many recent startups launch with promises of "changing the world" only to be bought and dismantled a few short years later, setting their community adrift. Craigslist's chief benefit to their users, and to the web community as a whole, is that they have a proven track record of stability. Thus, who can blame them for trying to protect their marketplace from getting eroded by outside interests? If they bowed to the current pressure and allowed outside access to their data, the web would risk losing a long-term standard, and, these days, consistent, trust-worthy standards are in short supply.