Craigslist's Approach is Anathema

Craigslist thinks it’s great.  Craig Newmark loves to strut around and talk about how he’s not making money.  How they only charge users where they feel it’s “appropriate”.  And how they have a soul.

I tend to disagree.  I think Craigslist is not a good steward of their users.  I don’t think what their doing is noble or altruistic.

They’ve built a service that is just good enough.  They’ve got a relatively captive audience.  And instead of making money so they can funnel that money into innovation and making their service better (like, say, Google does), they’re happy keeping the product just good enough.  Who pays the price?  USERS.  In wasted time and missed casual encounters.  Oye!

Hire an ex-Googler (perhaps Mike Sego!) and make your search work.

All this said, Craigslist is pretty amazing.  I’d die a happy man if I had the impact CL has and will on the world.  Not to mention all the funny stories of what people have used CL for…