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How Craigslist Costs Newspapers Money

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the surfeit-of-buggywhips dept.

Allnighterking writes "Well you knew it would happen, Now that eBay has purchased 25% of craigslist, the news is out and suddenly newspapers are claiming that it's costing them money (50-65 million U.S. dollars a year). The original Slashdot coverage is here."

5 of 480 comments (clear)

  1. Irony is more than proper clothes care by BrynM · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Anyone else find it ironic that this is being reported by Internet Week - an online magazine that has no print version? Maybe it's time the papers realize that re-printing their content online and requiring everything down to maternal shoe size for access is not a great business model. If some large paper, say in a big city like... um... New York had beaten Craigs to the punch or tried to compete in a similar manner instead of being stagnant in a dynamic medium, this wouldn't be a problem. I guess the old way didn't translate very well into a new medium.

    Oh.. and Go Josh! Woohoo! Congrats!

    --
    US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
  2. This is getting old... by confusion · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Yet another example of fundamental changes happening to some market segment, and the displaced groups crying. How many times have we seen this?

    I can't wait for the NPIA (news paper industry association - there has to be one, right?) to start kicking in doors with the FBI trying to quash the rouge, free exchange of want-ads.

    Jerry
    http://www.syslog.org/

  3. Cost the Newspapers? by nathanh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What a bizarre way of looking at it. IMO a better way to look at it is "newspapers no longer extorting $65 million per year from local residents". Or "$65 million once wasted on newspaper classifieds now available for health, education, other productive uses".

    Rather than Craigslist costing newspapers $65 million per year, I think the newspapers have been costing the local residents $65 million per year. Hooray for Craigslist. Boo to the newspapers.

  4. Hm... by kaitou · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thats rather sad really. They are claiming lost profit as if it is the fault of craiglist, not just them loosing out in competition.

    When have you seen "LA Times blames NY Times for a 30 Million dollar revenue loss"? It makes no sense. It's a (mostly) free market, and Craigslist is in competition with the papers for it. Their model works better, so they get the traffic, and the newspapers dont.

    They really have no place to whine here at all.

  5. So what, newspapers are on deathwatch anyway by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Read your local lately? You'll find maybe ten percent new local content put alongside 90% of yesterday's wire service stories. This is just a transport mechanism for the dozens of advert flyers that are the real purpose of the paper. LET THEM DIE.