Slashdot Mirror
How Craigslist is Keeping up Internet Ideals
prostoalex writes "CBS MarketWatch discusses whether Craig Newmark and CraigsList.org are missing out by not 'monetizing' their traffic or selling out to large corporations. CraigsList is currently #7 e-commerce site on the Internet with 13M unique visitors monthly, and only charges for real estate listings by professional brokers. No word on whether that income is enough to pay 24 salaries and data center fees for hosting a major Internet site." From the article: "Their noble stance gives entrepreneurs from San Francisco a great name. Despite the many unfortunate examples of greed, Internet entrepreneurs aren't all about getting rich quick and cashing out. At an entrepreneur's roots is a vision to provide a service that helps alleviate a pain point. The money thing always muddied the waters down the road. The attitude at Craigslist is a nice reminder of how entrepreneurs' ideals can still remain intact, no matter how odd they may seem in a world that worships money."
Some people paid attention during the dot.com bubble, learned a few things and are happy to just do what they want to do.... I dig that attitude.
Real estate is not the only paid category. Jobs postings in the largest markets are also revenue producers. (Although at $25 it can't be beat)
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211374&cid=172 09134h tml
http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/ebay.stake.
Craigslist didn't have any choice in that.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
About a year ago I was working at a big European bookmaker and our MySQL setup had gone as far as we could push it. We wanted to hear from another big MySQL user so our CTO mailed Craigslist, and to our pleasant surprise we soon got a very long, friendly and helpful explanation about their setup. I don't need to say how rare that is in business. Very likable company indeed.
It's interesting to think about the economic implications of Craigslist - certainly, not slapping ads everywhere and charging for all sorts of posts has allowed the site to grow to its huge size, but on the other hand, it has all but killed newspapers' cash cow, the classifieds. You can say, "who cares, newspapers are dying anyway," but the resources newspapers have - trained journalists, editors, the whole damn infrastructure - is quite valuable to our society as a whole. I don't really think Craigslist is going to kill the whole industry, but it's certainly had a big effect on how newspapers will move into the 21st century.
That being said, this decision on Craigslist's part to not monetize the site fully is something like "accelerated capitalism". In other words, they're skipping that whole phase where they maximize their size and influence to make lots of money until a competitor comes in to undercut them - because you pretty much CAN'T undercut them, they're undercutting themselves to achieve scale. Sites like Youtube are doing this too - the technology of everything has grown faster than the market can respond.
You know, I've worked for a small start-up kind of business that was "missing out" on "tons of money". Basically, the owners could have sold it to a much larger company, which then would have run the company into the ground. Or, they could have adopted the same practices that their competitors were using, and made a lot more money over the short term.
However, what kept the company working the way it did, what kept their customers happy, had always been the practices that cost them a bit more or didn't make as much money in the short term. What made it a good company was that it was a small company, without a lot of red tape or bureaucracy. The practices that made the owners, employees, and customers like the company were exactly the practices that a large company or a company driven by short-term profits would not do. In short, they could have sold out at any time, and become not better than their competition for the sake of short-term gains, but chose not to because they wanted to do a good job.
I wish more companies worked like that.
Money is important. You need it to buy food, shelter, medicine, providence for your family (if you have one) and so on.
The economy moves rapidly. It is not always obvious where your money will be coming from ten years down the road (when your skill set has been made obsolete or your industry has been outsourced or what-have-you). Having a fat pile of money ensures that your needs will still be met.
So I don't know that it is fair to say that our society "worships" money. The fact is we need it, so we put a lot of effort into getting it. That's just the way it is.
So, while the business of making a lot of money quickly may seem greedy, we must admit that there are very compelling economic (and even personal) motivations for attempting to do this. The sooner you have a large nestegg, the sooner you can rest easy in the face of an unpredictable future.
Resisting this urge, and instead accepting a slower income (and along with it the risk of running out of money in the future), for the benefit of others, is noble. Does that make a failure to do this evil? Are there two polar extremes with no middle ground?
IMO, providing for your needs, now and in the future, is not greed so much as self-interest. This is the primary motivator behind a capatilist society, which is the one in which we live. I won't deny the nobility of self-sacrifice, nor will I deny that there is a point at which accumulation stops being self-interest and transforms into greed. However, I will also deny that self-interest is the same as "worshipping money" or that trying to make money quickly is greedy or evil.
They realized that filthy rich was ok and that they didn't need to go for filthy, filthy, filthy stinking rich?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.