Nextdoor Is the Lastest Company to Enter On-Demand Services | Hacker News Reader

Nextdoor Is the Lastest Company to Enter On-Demand Services

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11 pointsprostoalex17 comments

Not sure who came up with the idea to Dr. Frankenstein chop and sew together CraigsList and Facebook, but well, here we are.

I don't see this working in my neighborhood, like at all, mostly because my neighbors are predominately senior citizens or just about there. Of the 20% or so within my demographic, we've got our own social networks in the greater metro area. Honestly, I think my general perspective is that people in my region buy a house for privacy moreso than to be all personable and economically associated with neighbors - there's always 'burbs with HOAs for those types of folks.

I could see it working in the more dense, downtown apartment / condo markets, but the socio-economic status of those folks is pretty affluent. They don't need to ask neighbors for pet sitting or repair because they've got buying power. And their own social networks for referrals...

About 20% of the people in my hood are on it. It's terrible, though. Basically, there are these types of posts:

* need someone to do X (X = clean house, fix house, etc)

* lost dog/cat found

* need house sitter

* giving away X: anyone want it?

Also, the ND admins decided to change who sees what, a year or so ago, and I think the revolt scared them. The basically widened the neighborhood greatly, so you'd see stuff from much further away. I hated it and pretty much stopped using it at that time.

The idea of it sounds good. The reality is that it's not at all something I use. Full disclosure: I stopped using FB a few years ago, too.

Plus the "Did you see that creepy van / solicitor / someone who's not the same race as me?" post? It gets tiring.

That would be a reflection of the neighborhood you live in.

>Nextdoor — the neighborhood-based social networking platform with a billion-dollar valuation

Am I the only one that's never heard of this company?

It's in that Thumbtack/Shyp category of billion dollar companies where the only time you hear them mentioned is from VC's and TechCrunch not actual users

I don't think that's right at all. Nextdoor is very popular outside of tech circles.

Nextdoor is pretty popular up here in Portland. Our entire neighborhood is on Nextdoor, and people use it to organize potlucks, parties, etc.

The whole point is that it's hyperlocal and networked. I don't think it's even possible to join it if they haven't set up a network for your community.

I'm a member and it seems moderately popular in DC... though nowhere near the penetration of old-fashioned neighborhood mailing lists.

We have it in my neighborhood. And, like, twice a week I'll get notices about how I can join a citizen police academy... and that's pretty much it.

It's a great idea, though, and could work better if anybody in my neighborhood (including me) was remotely social.

Seems to be popular in various parts of California where home ownership is high. It is also seems to be a haven for the "worst" type of neighbors who like to complain about everything and might be slightly racist. See "The Jerks Nextdoor" for a good overview of what happens way too often on the site: https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/jerks-nextdoor/content...

Edit: splat brought up a good point. A lot of municipalities are using it as an "official" communications platform.

I had such high hopes for Nextdoor, but it's basically useless for anything other than racist rants and pleas for help finding lost keys/dogs/cats.

It's actually decent in the Boston area: community events, discussion about redevelopments and things like service recommendations.

Hell, I've seen a couple folks find temporary housing after fires/floods through the thing.

There's a fair amount of activity here in central Ohio, as well. The most reliable source of discussion is that every few weeks the police department posts a notice about the locations where they will be having DUI checkpoints. Like clockwork this sets off a 50+ comment discussion where some people are dumbfounded that the police actually post where they will be ahead of time, followed by other people replying that in order for DUI checkpoints to be constitutional the police have to announce them ahead of time, followed by replies that it doesn't seem unconstitutional to have random police stops and drunk drivers should be stopped at all costs, etc. Every single time.

But it was useful to get information when people were getting upset that the city was trying to replace the green space in a park with a bunch of little league baseball parks.

I'm on NextDoor here in Indiana. It's great. It enables me to find out what's going on (good or bad) since I'm deaf and frequently am the last to know (if ever) prior to this.

We have it in my neighborhood (South Carolina). I haven't seen anything truly negative there; it's mostly PSAs from the local police + [who can recommend the best painter / plumber / roofer] + [complaints about random neighborhood problems].

The "who can recommend" part might be worth something, if they were careful to monetize it in a friendly way.

In my neighborhood (Silicon Valley) there are a few thousands members within a 5 mile radius of the allowable network that I can communicate with. Many, like myself, are apartment dwellers.

Most posts are classifieds with a mixture of public safety announcements, recommendation requests, and discussions about train noise.

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