Is Craigslist the Last Real Place on the Internet?(wired.com)
wired.com
Is Craigslist the Last Real Place on the Internet?
https://www.wired.com/story/is-craigslist-the-last-real-place-on-the-internet/
15 comments
I love craigslist for used car stuff, its a shame that all the sellers are now on FB marketplace. :(
Craigslist is kind of dead near me, except free stuff. I'll get a million people when I put up free stuff still.
I do most of my 2nd hand buying on OfferUp. Idk where it came from, a friend told me about it and it's pretty active.
I do most of my 2nd hand buying on OfferUp. Idk where it came from, a friend told me about it and it's pretty active.
I love Craigslist! It's like FB Marketplace, but better. The search tools are more powerful, and you don't get a barrage of "is this still available?" messages followed by crickets. I've found it much easier to both buy and sell things on CL.
It was awesome in its hay day. Now, post-FBm, it feels like a ghost town.
More people in my social circle are using CL again after AI moderation/anti-fraud issues at Facebook. A few examples:
A colleague listed his son’s high school archery equipment. Facebook banned him from marketplace for life for violating weapons policy. He still has social network access.
I helped an elderly widow create her first FB account from an Apple device, registering from her home cable modem IP, giving FB her cellphone number and ISP issued email address — all strong signals of authenticity. But after she added five relatives within half an hour, her account was locked, and Facebook closed it permanently on appeal.
Another acquaintance was brigaded by people reporting his comments. Troll or not, he lost access to Facebook/Marketplace and has to satiate his used electronics habit elsewhere.
You can lose access to FBm suddenly and with no recourse. And when that happens, Craigslist is still there to help you sell stuff you can’t eBay, like your old lawnmower, or find a CRT television for your Super Nintendo.
A colleague listed his son’s high school archery equipment. Facebook banned him from marketplace for life for violating weapons policy. He still has social network access.
I helped an elderly widow create her first FB account from an Apple device, registering from her home cable modem IP, giving FB her cellphone number and ISP issued email address — all strong signals of authenticity. But after she added five relatives within half an hour, her account was locked, and Facebook closed it permanently on appeal.
Another acquaintance was brigaded by people reporting his comments. Troll or not, he lost access to Facebook/Marketplace and has to satiate his used electronics habit elsewhere.
You can lose access to FBm suddenly and with no recourse. And when that happens, Craigslist is still there to help you sell stuff you can’t eBay, like your old lawnmower, or find a CRT television for your Super Nintendo.
I just looooove (read: hate) the ratings system on FB Marketplace. We bought a house semi-recently and it conveyed a front-loader washer dryer set. Wife wanted to get rid of it after about 6 months. I list it for an incredibly reasonable rate based on local past sales, eg a standalone washer routinely sells for $200 so I sold a set for $200.
Then come the low-ballers, they want to offer only $50 or $100 for my set. I click through into their profiles and see that they are resellers of washers and dryers in bulk so they want to buy and flip my set. I decline.
Well, after only 3 messages a “buyer” can rate you as a seller so I have a stack of 1-star reviews from resellers angry that I politely declined to sell to them when I had a queue of asking-price buyers lined up to buy same-day.
Trash system.
Then come the low-ballers, they want to offer only $50 or $100 for my set. I click through into their profiles and see that they are resellers of washers and dryers in bulk so they want to buy and flip my set. I decline.
Well, after only 3 messages a “buyer” can rate you as a seller so I have a stack of 1-star reviews from resellers angry that I politely declined to sell to them when I had a queue of asking-price buyers lined up to buy same-day.
Trash system.
CL right now is like the best and worst place. Theres some good deals, from honest people; unfortunately, you have to wade through the scams sometimes though. Itd be great if there was better moderation, and we could find ways to bring it back to life that dont involve the awful things other companies do to survive
It's always been that way, and Markeplace is the same too. At least you can actually use search filters on CL, and it doesn't just show you whatever it thinks you want to see.
Partly true but partly because FB shows you items you didn’t ask for from locations too far away.
Also several times per day Facebook Marketplace tells me there are new listings that match my saved search when there aren’t.
Also several times per day Facebook Marketplace tells me there are new listings that match my saved search when there aren’t.
I guess I'm too young to recall the "before times." I've used it while living in 3 different cities now and it's been great.
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not quite the last
https://www.barnstormers.com/
airplanes, airplane stuff, airports, airport stuff, little airplanes, big airplanes, fighter jets, airplanes from the dawn times, every budget and skill level. online since day 2, almost exactly unchanged, certain adds cost a few bucks to list, other adds are hand coded into the pages, social side is listings for "fly in's"
https://www.barnstormers.com/
airplanes, airplane stuff, airports, airport stuff, little airplanes, big airplanes, fighter jets, airplanes from the dawn times, every budget and skill level. online since day 2, almost exactly unchanged, certain adds cost a few bucks to list, other adds are hand coded into the pages, social side is listings for "fly in's"