In Defense Of Craigslist: Humility, And Everyone is Lucky

June 7th, 2007

TechnologyWell, I must politely disagree with Tony Hung here (although the vast majority of the time I enjoy reading his blog and agree with him).

Tony over at Deep Jive Interests voices some annoyance at Craig Newmark’s non-desire to monetize the increasingly popular Craigslist, even calling him lazy.

As Craigslist user since 1999 when I first arrived in the Bay Area, I have to say a large part of its success has been Craig’s non-commercial attitude. He fostered a community way before it was a buzz word in Web 2.0, and during the dark days after the Web 1.0 implosion.

Over the years I found several jobs, contract work, roommates, apartments, garage sales, bought and sold stuff, and even ranted in the forums. The only other companies that have received that sort of loyalty and user satisfaction from me are Apple and Google.

The site’s minimalist text-only approach is about getting stuff done, just like Google’s search page. Both sites look basically the same today. I recall a Craigslist April Fool’s joke one year that announced of ads on Craigslist, marring the minimalist look. The community freaked out. Craig reassured everyone that it was just a joke. The community breathed a sigh of relief.

Yes, Craig was lucky to start the site at the right time, and figure out community before it was the thing to do. But if I were consider luck a large factor in Craig’s success, I’d have to add pretty much everyone: YouTube, Apple, Yahoo!, and The Beatles to that list. Luck may have handed them the opportunity but it’s what they did with it that counts. And Craig hasn’t squandered that opportunity as far as I’m concerned. He could have easily sold Craigslist and reassured the community that nothing would change, when most certainly things would have. He puts the community first, which is easier said than done.

To remain staunchly anti-commercial and not sell out when people are handing you cash - well, I see that as fortitude, not laziness or even stupidity. Craigslist remains focused on purpose, determination, and not fixing what isn’t broken.

I’ll also add that if / when there’s another downturn in the Bay Area and people are looking for jobs, ranting, or selling all their stuff so they can move out of state, you can bet the recession-proof Craigslist will still be around helping them do it. They’ll outlast Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 and beyond. And frankly, that sounds pretty darned smart. Lazy and lucky, perhaps, but still smart.

Disclosure: I own a tiny amount of Apple stock.

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Viewing 3 Comments

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    To remain staunchly anti-commercial and not sell out when people are handing you cash - well, I see that as fortitude, not laziness or even stupidity. Craigslist remains focused on purpose, determination, and not fixing what isn’t broken.

    Not maximizing efficiencies is what seems lazy to me -- and surely adding a few ads here and there in a tasteful way would not seem unreasonable, even for the Craigslist community. Its one thing to plaster pop ups and flashing ads for spyware software, and its another to add in a few unobtrusive text link ads or even Adwords.

    Furthermore, who knows how much good all that extra wasted and unrealized capital could do? Sure, I know that what they do is their business, but actively deciding *not* to do anything about all that inefficiency doesn't seem smart.

    It seems lazy.

    As for your other analogies about luck's role in other ventures -- you're right in some respects, and I think that all successful ventures have a strong dash of luck to them.

    On the other hand, once the ball got rolling, well, classifieds is something that runs its self. Where are the smarts in getting out of the way of a successfully running operation?

    As for your thoughts on outlasting all the other Web2/3.o concerns, that makes sense. On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing how a purely classified's company *wouldn't* have a hard time outlasting all others. Put another way, I would expect *all* classified companies -- like blogs -- to do just fine in a downturn, because their overhead is low. Asked about the same issue (by me, at Mesh), Mike Arrington gave the same commentary. He's going to do just fine because it costs almost nothing to run TC.

    Anyway, it looks like I *am* the only who thinks that Craigslist is a product of luck than anything else.

    Thanks for contributing to the conversation ... ;)

    t @ dji
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    I'm thinking there be something more to Craig Newmark's reluctance to monetize Craigslist than just laziness - perhaps some philosophy or creed he came up with in the early days.

    Still, I don't think you're alone - here's another post from late last year that wonders why Craig doesn't put some ads on there.

    Maybe one way to monetize and still keep in good faith with the community is to donate a large portion of that money to charity or something, ala Paul Newman's spaghetti sauce.
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    Well, I guess we'll have to politely agree to disagree (or agree?). It takes a lot of balls to leave a whole whack of cash on the metaphorical table, "just because" -- and I think that, as your link eloquently describes, there is almost something ethically wrong with doing so if you have a tremendous potential for Good.

    And for what? A few tastefully placed links?

    Cheers
    tony.
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