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I think the reason people here feel this way is because the general consensus among HN users is that the best product wins and that's all that matters. If a com

I think the reason people here feel this way is because the general consensus among HN users is that the best product wins and that's all that matters. If a company has a monopoly on data and refuses to provide an API they're saying that they don't want to compete on the quality of their product (craigslist for example) they want to keep their position without the benefits to the users. Padmapper made craigslist apartment searches much better, instead of making their own apartment searches better craigslist shut Padmapper's access to craigslist data down. It shows that they value their own business more than they value the experience of their users, which to a lot of people here isn't exactly "good". Companies are free to do with their data whatever they want and they're free to restrict access to it however they like, sure, but it's still lame when a company does it because they don't want to improve their product and don't like competition.

atomical 14y ago
If that's the general consensus of HN users I don't think many stand to make any money.
MultiRRomero 14y ago
Craigslist's one goal in the world is to make a profit. That's it. Everything else comes secondary. If they decide that providing users a service will help them accomplish this, then have them provide a good service (which they do). However, they don't owe anything to any businesses or even any users. If users don't like this, let them go to an alternative. Welcome to capitalism, where the users decide what product they want. (Now if you don't like what the majority of users are deciding, then that's another issue altogether.)
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  These companies owe the consumers who are paying them. That's it. The consumers absolutely have a right to express that they are dissatisfied with the exchange being made.
- mwd_ 14y ago
  Craigslist is a privately-owned company and was actually a non-profit at one point. In the past Craig Newmark has talked about Craigslist as a tool for community organization and so on. If Craigslist were 100% profit-driven I think it could have made a lot more money off of its huge user base.
  - jarcoal 14y ago
    I'm not disagreeing with you, but do you see how the appearance of not being profit driven can increase your profits?
    - mwd_ 14y ago
      It's possible, but if I were a cash-obsessed Craigslist founder I think I would have sold the company a while ago and moved on to something else.
  - bmelton 14y ago
    That's actually an interesting enough theory that I'd love to test. My guess is that the site is generally mediocre enough that it would be hard to get more people to open their wallets except for select listing types. If they charged to view the listings for example, I'd wager that very few people would bother and they'd lose their network effect. My guess is that they're getting about as much money as they can without offending too many people as preservation of their user network is highest priority, as it is what allows them to keep charging money for the few things they charge for currently.
    - stfu 14y ago
      If they charged to view the listings for example Just by putting un-offsensive elements such as a single Adsense box on each site they should be able to generate serious additional revenue without experiencing that much of critique. With that kind of traffic and legitimate profile, the un-intrusive revenue options are endless. Just additional fees for highlighted listings, dynamic pricing for a slower decay of a posting, etc. But the beauty of Craigslist is its absolute no-frills approach and consistency over years and years. Reminds me a bit on the success of Drudge. Similarly weathering all storms by concentrating on content and simplicity to the extreme.
- nestlequ1k 14y ago
  Save it for econ class. A company's goal is to build a sustainable profit generating engine. To allow this, it needs to play a constructive part in the marketplace and community.
  - BobPalmer 14y ago
    A company does not need to provide a constructive part of the community to achieve their goal of profitability... they just have to provide something that some segment of the population is willing to pay for, or build in a degree of lock-in that guarantees continued profits. For example, It's probably fair to say that Monsanto is not a constructive part of the marketplace and community, but they sure do have a sustainable profit generating engine. Edit - if you're going to downvote, how about some discussion as to how this comment does not add to the conversation... since I'm sure there was some other reason for the downvote other than not agreeing with me :)
    - tikhonj 14y ago
      And if they're not a constructive part of the community, the community has every right (I think it's practically an obligation) to berate them for it. Just having a business plan and making money should not protect you from criticism or absolve behavior detrimental to the general community! Yes, legally Craigslist has no obligations; that's why nobody's litigating. I argue that morally (at least from a utilitarian standpoint), Craigslist does have an obligation to play nice. And so I welcome critical blog posts and bad publicity.
      - BobPalmer 14y ago
        Oh, I agree 100% that if the community disagrees with the behavior of an entity they they have every right to berate them. And if a company behaves poorly enough, it will open the floodgates for competitors and revenue loss (i.e. GoDaddy during SOPA probably lost an appreciable number of customers). That being said, in this specific case I think that whether or not there is a moral obligation to let a third party scrape and mix-in your data is very debatable (given that Craigslist does not provide an API). Sure, people should play nice. And some may interpret playing nice as 'don't scrape other people's stuff for your own startup'. Or at least don't be suprised when they get pissed ;)
- paulhodge 14y ago
  You talk as if there is perfect market choice - that if a majority of customers want something, it will happen. In the real world, there is not perfect market choice. There are many factors which make it impossible to have perfect market choice. We are probably stuck with Craigslist and LinkedIn for a while, and for the most part, we are stuck with the decisions that their executives make. It's true that if they do something highly awful, then that might create enough demand for a competitor to take over. But it would have to be a high degree of awfulness to overcome their existing momentum. There are many shades of not-quite-awful, where those companies can make decisions with market impunity. So considering that we're kinda stuck with those guys, I think the question becomes, why shouldn't we complain if they are doing something that we don't like? Doesn't matter who owes who what. It's our world, we should try to improve it.
  - ericingram 14y ago
    You should complain if you really want to, that's part of the market force. I think perfect market choice is a funny idea. Why would anyone assume the market would function on such a limited plane of understanding, that all you had to do was poll people, you could trust their verbal response, and decide that's what the market should do? People very often do things in contrast with what they say, even what they believe consciously. There is so much more at play than what people would "vote" for in the sense of a "perfect market choice".
xelipe 14y ago
I don't think Craiglist has a "monopoly on data", they have a monopoly on their data and they have not incentive to make their data freely available.
- davidw 14y ago
  What Craigslist has is what economists call "positive network externalities" or network effects. Which just means that it's a really valuable service because tons of other people use it. Buyers go there because lots of people are selling, and lots of people selling go there because they know lots of buyers visit the site.
  - monkeymace 14y ago
    This is the perennial frustration with the immense power of the network effect, a power that all start-ups live and die on. Unfortunately, us humans have a hard time banding together and forming enough consensus to 'jump ship' enmass to a new service. Especially, when the a lack of 'innovative features' on a given service barely registers on the pain scale. Look at the internets SOPA protest, the entire integrity of the internet was threatened and we did something about it. But how can you generate enough support around: we need better mash-ups to view craigslist postings!
    - politician 14y ago
      Sometimes the companies do it to themselves: Digg succeeded in defeating the network effect. CL is certainly aware of that fiasco.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    So, what are we supposed to do? Seems like the only options are: A) destroy the network effect with legislation. (How is this good?) B) select another company The Board feels has a better platform, crush CL with legislation, and establish the new company with legislation. (How is this good!?!)
    - 14y ago
heliodor 14y ago
Actually, Craigslist values us, the users, more than most companies. You know how? By leaving so much money on the table that you can't help but love them! Craigslist is a breath of fresh air in a world where everything is optimized as much as possible to part us from our money!
- jarcoal 14y ago
  If CL decided to take that money on the table, they might have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and went out of business years ago. Maybe they realized the path to greatest profitability was to act like they don't care about profits. Just a thought.
  - ericingram 14y ago
    Ah yes, that is how free markets actually work!
  - sopooneo 14y ago
    That is possible. But I get the feeling they naively stumbled into that outcome by genuinely trying to be decent.
    - jarcoal 14y ago
      I agree. I've always felt they've had good intentions, and I think that they do in this case as well. They are looking out for the posters who are entrusting them with their data.
- prostoalex 14y ago
  That is not strictly true. A better search would save the users time, compared to clicking through CL pages, which for popular categories could be overwhelming.
  - dedward 14y ago
    But if that doesn't matter to Craig & co, and people still use the site, revenue still stays as expected, they can just NOT mess with it and go play video games or whatever.
jacoblyles 14y ago
Craigslist is the IE6 of classified ads. They are a monopoly that keeps the product shitty and prevents innovation. Padmapper is the Mozilla.
- huhtenberg 14y ago
  It's more of Avant then... as in, you know, the wrapper around the IWebBrowser2 interface.
- ebrenes 14y ago
  Is it really? I think all these derisive comments against CL are focusing on tangential details to the classified ad market. If I place a classified ad it is to find a buyer for the services or product I'm trying to move. CL currently does that better than the competition. Yet the comments I see being handed around are about UI, design, automation and other items that might, but don't actually increase my chance of selling. To replace CL those sites need to provide the person posting the ad with a chance of finding a buyer that's equal to or greater than CL. If those new start-ups can't provide that, but only have a shinier UI to offer, then they're competing on irrelevant details that aren't the main drivers behind people's decisions to post/view CL. Others have mentioned marketing approaches and techniques to help improve those aspects. But most of what I've read is summarized as: "we'll provide a better app/ui/api" and that's a noble goal, but the reason for existing of these sits is to connect seller with buyer, what do those things bring to the table if a new app lacks a sufficiently large viewing audience? That's the problem that needs solving, not the app/ui/api one.
kenjackson 14y ago
If a company has a monopoly on data and refuses to provide an API they're saying that they don't want to compete on the quality of their product This implies that part of the quality of a product is NOT the ability to gather data. This would be like me walking into a Walmart, setting up a cash register next to theirs and start ringing up customers and arguing that Walmart can't compare with my customer service. Ignoring that customer service is just one small part of the business. Walmart had to find the property, buy the property, do the legal work to get the product on the shevles, the negotiation, the supply chain management, etc... I can't just focus on the last mile and then argue that I'm entitled to everything else they did. Craigslist built its name, it's reputation, it's backend, it's API, vetted a business model for its services, scouted out regions to focus on etc... Furthermore, people are arguing the data is the users, not CLs. True, but the user gave it to CL, not to you. When I loan books to a neighbor I assume they aren't going to create a library of my loaned books (unless they specifically told me so).
- Maascamp 14y ago
  Well said. I'm actually shocked that a community of entrepreneurs would take the position that it's OK to demand access to a company's competitive advantage in order to compete with them. I'm not sure if it's a sense of entitlement fostered by all the seemingly easy money around tech startups or simply sheer laziness.
  - meddlepal 14y ago
    I think it is both. The problem is that hackers and entrepreneurs have different ethics (or is the correct word here philosophies?) and goals.
  - ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
    Well, I can't believe an entire community of entrepreneurs actually beleive this is a design/data use/competition issue and are failing to mention that Craigslist is protecting one of their ONLY sources of income. House postings. Housing is 1 of the 2 things (job postings in certain cities is the other) that Craigslist charges for. So if Padmapper gets popular, starts listing from it's own website and people go directly to it, bypassing Craigslist, Craigslist takes a Massive hit in revenue. THIS is a huge weakness. If you want to kill Craigslist start with Housing and Job postings in the cities that Craigslist charges for. Those 2 things ALONE are what are funding all of Craigslist.
scott_meade 14y ago
"the general consensus among HN users is that the best product wins and that's all that matters" That's human nature. Users in marketing communities conclude that it's the best marketing that wins. If you're an executive you think the best management team is all that matters. Designers think it's design. PR folks think it's press. Financiers think it's money. I have bad news for everyone. The world does not work in the way our echo-chambers would seem to model it. It's almost impossible for the human mind to process such a fact. Yet, it's true.

atomical 14y ago

If that's the general consensus of HN users I don't think many stand to make any money.

MultiRRomero 14y ago

Craigslist's one goal in the world is to make a profit. That's it. Everything else comes secondary. If they decide that providing users a service will help them accomplish this, then have them provide a good service (which they do). However, they don't owe anything to any businesses or even any users. If users don't like this, let them go to an alternative. Welcome to capitalism, where the users decide what product they want. (Now if you don't like what the majority of users are deciding, then that's another issue altogether.)

waterlesscloud 14y ago
These companies owe the consumers who are paying them. That's it. The consumers absolutely have a right to express that they are dissatisfied with the exchange being made.
mwd_ 14y ago
Craigslist is a privately-owned company and was actually a non-profit at one point. In the past Craig Newmark has talked about Craigslist as a tool for community organization and so on. If Craigslist were 100% profit-driven I think it could have made a lot more money off of its huge user base.
- jarcoal 14y ago
  I'm not disagreeing with you, but do you see how the appearance of not being profit driven can increase your profits?
  - mwd_ 14y ago
    It's possible, but if I were a cash-obsessed Craigslist founder I think I would have sold the company a while ago and moved on to something else.
- bmelton 14y ago
  That's actually an interesting enough theory that I'd love to test. My guess is that the site is generally mediocre enough that it would be hard to get more people to open their wallets except for select listing types. If they charged to view the listings for example, I'd wager that very few people would bother and they'd lose their network effect. My guess is that they're getting about as much money as they can without offending too many people as preservation of their user network is highest priority, as it is what allows them to keep charging money for the few things they charge for currently.
  - stfu 14y ago
    If they charged to view the listings for example Just by putting un-offsensive elements such as a single Adsense box on each site they should be able to generate serious additional revenue without experiencing that much of critique. With that kind of traffic and legitimate profile, the un-intrusive revenue options are endless. Just additional fees for highlighted listings, dynamic pricing for a slower decay of a posting, etc. But the beauty of Craigslist is its absolute no-frills approach and consistency over years and years. Reminds me a bit on the success of Drudge. Similarly weathering all storms by concentrating on content and simplicity to the extreme.
nestlequ1k 14y ago
Save it for econ class. A company's goal is to build a sustainable profit generating engine. To allow this, it needs to play a constructive part in the marketplace and community.
- BobPalmer 14y ago
  A company does not need to provide a constructive part of the community to achieve their goal of profitability... they just have to provide something that some segment of the population is willing to pay for, or build in a degree of lock-in that guarantees continued profits. For example, It's probably fair to say that Monsanto is not a constructive part of the marketplace and community, but they sure do have a sustainable profit generating engine. Edit - if you're going to downvote, how about some discussion as to how this comment does not add to the conversation... since I'm sure there was some other reason for the downvote other than not agreeing with me :)
  - tikhonj 14y ago
    And if they're not a constructive part of the community, the community has every right (I think it's practically an obligation) to berate them for it. Just having a business plan and making money should not protect you from criticism or absolve behavior detrimental to the general community! Yes, legally Craigslist has no obligations; that's why nobody's litigating. I argue that morally (at least from a utilitarian standpoint), Craigslist does have an obligation to play nice. And so I welcome critical blog posts and bad publicity.
    - BobPalmer 14y ago
      Oh, I agree 100% that if the community disagrees with the behavior of an entity they they have every right to berate them. And if a company behaves poorly enough, it will open the floodgates for competitors and revenue loss (i.e. GoDaddy during SOPA probably lost an appreciable number of customers). That being said, in this specific case I think that whether or not there is a moral obligation to let a third party scrape and mix-in your data is very debatable (given that Craigslist does not provide an API). Sure, people should play nice. And some may interpret playing nice as 'don't scrape other people's stuff for your own startup'. Or at least don't be suprised when they get pissed ;)
paulhodge 14y ago
You talk as if there is perfect market choice - that if a majority of customers want something, it will happen. In the real world, there is not perfect market choice. There are many factors which make it impossible to have perfect market choice. We are probably stuck with Craigslist and LinkedIn for a while, and for the most part, we are stuck with the decisions that their executives make. It's true that if they do something highly awful, then that might create enough demand for a competitor to take over. But it would have to be a high degree of awfulness to overcome their existing momentum. There are many shades of not-quite-awful, where those companies can make decisions with market impunity. So considering that we're kinda stuck with those guys, I think the question becomes, why shouldn't we complain if they are doing something that we don't like? Doesn't matter who owes who what. It's our world, we should try to improve it.
- ericingram 14y ago
  You should complain if you really want to, that's part of the market force. I think perfect market choice is a funny idea. Why would anyone assume the market would function on such a limited plane of understanding, that all you had to do was poll people, you could trust their verbal response, and decide that's what the market should do? People very often do things in contrast with what they say, even what they believe consciously. There is so much more at play than what people would "vote" for in the sense of a "perfect market choice".

xelipe 14y ago

I don't think Craiglist has a "monopoly on data", they have a monopoly on their data and they have not incentive to make their data freely available.

davidw 14y ago
What Craigslist has is what economists call "positive network externalities" or network effects. Which just means that it's a really valuable service because tons of other people use it. Buyers go there because lots of people are selling, and lots of people selling go there because they know lots of buyers visit the site.
- monkeymace 14y ago
  This is the perennial frustration with the immense power of the network effect, a power that all start-ups live and die on. Unfortunately, us humans have a hard time banding together and forming enough consensus to 'jump ship' enmass to a new service. Especially, when the a lack of 'innovative features' on a given service barely registers on the pain scale. Look at the internets SOPA protest, the entire integrity of the internet was threatened and we did something about it. But how can you generate enough support around: we need better mash-ups to view craigslist postings!
  - politician 14y ago
    Sometimes the companies do it to themselves: Digg succeeded in defeating the network effect. CL is certainly aware of that fiasco.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  So, what are we supposed to do? Seems like the only options are: A) destroy the network effect with legislation. (How is this good?) B) select another company The Board feels has a better platform, crush CL with legislation, and establish the new company with legislation. (How is this good!?!)
  - 14y ago

heliodor 14y ago

Actually, Craigslist values us, the users, more than most companies. You know how? By leaving so much money on the table that you can't help but love them! Craigslist is a breath of fresh air in a world where everything is optimized as much as possible to part us from our money!

jarcoal 14y ago
If CL decided to take that money on the table, they might have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way and went out of business years ago. Maybe they realized the path to greatest profitability was to act like they don't care about profits. Just a thought.
- ericingram 14y ago
  Ah yes, that is how free markets actually work!
- sopooneo 14y ago
  That is possible. But I get the feeling they naively stumbled into that outcome by genuinely trying to be decent.
  - jarcoal 14y ago
    I agree. I've always felt they've had good intentions, and I think that they do in this case as well. They are looking out for the posters who are entrusting them with their data.
prostoalex 14y ago
That is not strictly true. A better search would save the users time, compared to clicking through CL pages, which for popular categories could be overwhelming.
- dedward 14y ago
  But if that doesn't matter to Craig & co, and people still use the site, revenue still stays as expected, they can just NOT mess with it and go play video games or whatever.

jacoblyles 14y ago

Craigslist is the IE6 of classified ads. They are a monopoly that keeps the product shitty and prevents innovation. Padmapper is the Mozilla.

huhtenberg 14y ago
It's more of Avant then... as in, you know, the wrapper around the IWebBrowser2 interface.
ebrenes 14y ago
Is it really? I think all these derisive comments against CL are focusing on tangential details to the classified ad market. If I place a classified ad it is to find a buyer for the services or product I'm trying to move. CL currently does that better than the competition. Yet the comments I see being handed around are about UI, design, automation and other items that might, but don't actually increase my chance of selling. To replace CL those sites need to provide the person posting the ad with a chance of finding a buyer that's equal to or greater than CL. If those new start-ups can't provide that, but only have a shinier UI to offer, then they're competing on irrelevant details that aren't the main drivers behind people's decisions to post/view CL. Others have mentioned marketing approaches and techniques to help improve those aspects. But most of what I've read is summarized as: "we'll provide a better app/ui/api" and that's a noble goal, but the reason for existing of these sits is to connect seller with buyer, what do those things bring to the table if a new app lacks a sufficiently large viewing audience? That's the problem that needs solving, not the app/ui/api one.

kenjackson 14y ago

If a company has a monopoly on data and refuses to provide an API they're saying that they don't want to compete on the quality of their product This implies that part of the quality of a product is NOT the ability to gather data. This would be like me walking into a Walmart, setting up a cash register next to theirs and start ringing up customers and arguing that Walmart can't compare with my customer service. Ignoring that customer service is just one small part of the business. Walmart had to find the property, buy the property, do the legal work to get the product on the shevles, the negotiation, the supply chain management, etc... I can't just focus on the last mile and then argue that I'm entitled to everything else they did. Craigslist built its name, it's reputation, it's backend, it's API, vetted a business model for its services, scouted out regions to focus on etc... Furthermore, people are arguing the data is the users, not CLs. True, but the user gave it to CL, not to you. When I loan books to a neighbor I assume they aren't going to create a library of my loaned books (unless they specifically told me so).

Maascamp 14y ago
Well said. I'm actually shocked that a community of entrepreneurs would take the position that it's OK to demand access to a company's competitive advantage in order to compete with them. I'm not sure if it's a sense of entitlement fostered by all the seemingly easy money around tech startups or simply sheer laziness.
- meddlepal 14y ago
  I think it is both. The problem is that hackers and entrepreneurs have different ethics (or is the correct word here philosophies?) and goals.
- ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
  Well, I can't believe an entire community of entrepreneurs actually beleive this is a design/data use/competition issue and are failing to mention that Craigslist is protecting one of their ONLY sources of income. House postings. Housing is 1 of the 2 things (job postings in certain cities is the other) that Craigslist charges for. So if Padmapper gets popular, starts listing from it's own website and people go directly to it, bypassing Craigslist, Craigslist takes a Massive hit in revenue. THIS is a huge weakness. If you want to kill Craigslist start with Housing and Job postings in the cities that Craigslist charges for. Those 2 things ALONE are what are funding all of Craigslist.

scott_meade 14y ago

"the general consensus among HN users is that the best product wins and that's all that matters" That's human nature. Users in marketing communities conclude that it's the best marketing that wins. If you're an executive you think the best management team is all that matters. Designers think it's design. PR folks think it's press. Financiers think it's money. I have bad news for everyone. The world does not work in the way our echo-chambers would seem to model it. It's almost impossible for the human mind to process such a fact. Yet, it's true.