4 ms·
Isn't that exactly the point he's making
by d4nt 17y ago
Isn't that exactly the point he's making
- zaidf 17y agoHe's saying making it a buck will make CL a lot of money. OP is saying that may not happen. People might move to another classifieds website in mass. CL might end up making a lot less money because less traffic = less price for paid sections of their site(ie. job sections in certain cities).
- mhb 17y agoIt seems unlikely that classified ad traffic drives job-hunting traffic. Does someone who is looking for a used fish tank stumble across an ad for an IT professional? Not the way CL is organized.
- d4nt 17y agoI think seth is saying a lot less ads will be placed, which will make the site nicer to use. Combine that added usability with the critical mass it already has and CL stay dominant and will make more money than it does currently.
- yesimahuman 17y agoI think he's wrong about it though. Honestly, craigslist hasn't failed me much. I rarely get spam or ads. When I need to sell something, it has always worked out. Part of the wonder of craigslist is that everyone has access to it. If they charged to post, some people wouldn't pay, and the community would suffer
- zaidf 17y agoYeah I saw his post more as a HUGE hypothetical fantasy. The premise of it is based on making money. While that is usually the end pursued by most commercial ventures, Craig Newmark has made it abundantly clear that optimizing money is never the goal at Craigslist.
- stcredzero 17y agoThe premise of it is based on making money That's not what I read it as. I think the key paragraph is: Money creates a sort of friction. In the digital economy, magical things can happen when there is no friction. You can scale to infinity. On the other hand, sometimes you want friction. Especially the last line. By charging a small amount, you remove the ability to scale to infinity. I would charge far less than a dollar per ad, though.
- DanielStraight 17y agoRight. Charging anything at all may kill the entire site.