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Comment by algaeontoast | Hacker News Reader

As a millennial I really hate this trend. For instance, most housing groups on facebook now are mostly filled with people just posting about themselves and expect others to come to them with housing options that work. Instead of actually just going through listings to find something that would work for them... It's the most bizarre entitled way to try to flip a sellers market into a buyers market...

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You're witnessing long-overdue movements in the direction of the Intention Economy [1] (a riff on the Attention Economy). In fact, the base concepts are not new - it's how companies do their buying, using RFPs. Now that we have computers, why should people have to schlep over listings filled with irrelevant stuff?

But the real problem seems this tendency to use Facebook for everything, when it's really not the best option for anything. Better platforms can provide filtered options automatically, reducing the work for both parties. I really hope FB starts losing its grasp on the web.

[1] https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/intention-economy

I big reason that housing groups are filled with people posting looking for a room, rather than vice verse, is because Facebook offers a terrible search UI for actually finding suitable houses.

I can't filter by location, rent, rooms, etc. etc. I have to instead scroll through dozens of irrelevant posts, then send a message to relevant ones and hope that I'm a suitable housemate and they reply back.

Meanwhile, on websites specifically designed for finding roommates, I can usually search by location, price, rooms, gender requirement (if any), building type (e.g. apartment, house), etc. etc.

...it sounds like you're complaining about the people who are trying to make money from a relationship being the ones to put the work in. If you're renting or selling, it's up to you to put in the legwork.

Housing groups are usually for people looking to rent a property together, not owners selling/renting.

Some people view that relationship as "you need me so come to me" - in my experience, those are the worst people to live with.

I rather like that Facebook lets people act naturally. The people that reply to those lazy posts are usually poor planners desperately seeking a flatmate... so neither group engages with my ads :D

The smart thing to do is to approach it from both sides. Of course, only people's postings are visible to you. You wouldn't know if they read 100 listings and reached out to several of them.

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