Craig Newmark, the Principled Jerk | Hacker News Reader

Craig Newmark, the Principled Jerk

blog.jeremymims.com

126 pointslloydarmbrust102 comments

Lay off the personal attacks. No place here.

Any company is entitled to whatever they provide and it's not your place to sit as judge. People give them the information, for free. Craigslist displays it, for free.

Unless someone sues Craigslist for some sort of anti-trust regulation, the challenge for people desiring to compete in the Craigslist's market is to build something from the ground up. (Oh, and it's always a market people are after, it's not "Oh, we want to help people find apartments better because we're nice people"). The fact that it's difficult is the entrepreneur's problem, not Craigs.

and it's not your place to sit as judge

Strongly disagree. Just as a company is entitled to provide whatever they wish, consumers are entitled to form views of the company based on their actions.

Correct. And it's our job to judge the company, not an employee of that company.

When did we stop being allowed to judge people by their actions?

It seems like more of the people dissatisfied with Craigslist would be directing their ire at the CEO (Jim Buckmaster), and not Craig himself. Of the two I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that despite the "Craig" in Craiglist, it would be the CEO responsible for the decisions this company is making...

That's the one fair criticism to make.

Though Craig is AFAIU a or the principle shareholder in Craigslist.

A company is just 1:N people trying to accomplish something (usually earn profit). I would usually agree that it's best to treat a company separate from the individuals there. But in the case of Craigslist it may be fair since Craig has full control of the company, and the companies latest actions are clearly done by either his command or with his consent.

Not to mention his name is on the freaking company! Hard to separate the two when that happens. If you have a problem with Craig's List, why not complain about Craig?

Craig of Craigslist isn't exactly the same as any old employee of any old company. I understand the distinction you're trying to make, but the fact that it's hard in this case is a side-effect of the context they've worked very hard to create. In other words, they're asking for it.

The company, regardless of laws that claim individual rights for corporations, is not something that can be judged independently of the people who comprise it. If you judge a company you are by definition judging it's employees, owners, shareholders, etc. If you are not considering the people, then a company itself is almost nothing.

A corporation is a legal device, but is, of course, made up of individuals. To judge a company is to judge individuals working in concert.

From the OED: "company ... 2 A number of individuals assembled or associated together; a body of people combined for some common object."

consumers are entitled to form views of the company based on their actions.

And arguably not just entitled to form views, but morally obligated to do so. In a mostly unregulated industry (like classified ads), the court of public opinion is one of the more powerful checks civil society can deploy to police corporations.

Boycotts, bad press, strikes, activism, and the like can all change corporate behavior to some extent. For most people, these tools are the only way to influence corporations. Most people don't have the money to lobby Congress. "Voting with your dollars" doesn't really work with monopolies, or quasi-monopolies. And founding competing startups is a fantasy even for most entrepreneurially-minded hackers, let alone regular folk with families, mortgages, and no programming skill.

If we say these methods shouldn't ever be used, we're basically saying only laws can regulate corporate behavior. That sounds like a recipe for more and worse laws, more lobbying, and worse corporate behavior.

"Legally rightful" is often different from "morally rightful". Craig is morally in the wrong - he seized control over classifieds market, and is now using that position to stall the progress and harm consumers.

By way of analogy, saying "build your own stuff" is akin to saying "build your own popular OS and sell it to OEMs" in the face of a crushing Microsoft monopoly on the nineties. The network effect is far too strong for a free-market approach to work its magic, and as a result we all suffer.

I wonder if Craig realizes he became a Microsoft-style monopoly. That should be a very uncomfortable thought to him.

he seized control over classifieds market

You say "seized control" like he showed up with a bunch of armed goons and wrested it away from its rightful owner. Craigslist dominates online classifieds because they recognized it was a market worth serving years before the incumbents in classifieds did, and served it. It's not a crime to get there first.

I wonder if Craig realizes he became a Microsoft-style monopoly

I must have missed the part where Craigslist used their dominant position in classified advertising to unfairly benefit other products they offer.

Grandparent obviously meant the entrenched-but-ultimately-mediocre sort of monopoly.

What Microsoft has individually gotten hand slapped for isn't as important as the history of their character.

> You say "seized control" like he showed up with a bunch of armed goons and wrested it away from its rightful owner. Craigslist dominates online classifieds because they recognized it was a market worth serving years before the incumbents in classifieds did, and served it. It's not a crime to get there first.

I agree that "seize" is poor word choice, but the fact that he gained a monopoly position through legal competition does not negate the fact that it's a monopoly.

>I must have missed the part where Craigslist used their dominant position in classified advertising to unfairly benefit other products they offer.

They use it to advance an unusual philosophy. Yes, this is different from using it to get money, but the effect for those of us who do not share their philosophy are similar.

If Standard Oil used the money earned from its monopoly powers to buy teddy bears for orphans, that wouldn't have reduced arguments that it was a trust and needed to be broken up. (And given Rockefeller's philanthropy, this isn't too far from the truth.)

Edit (since I can't reply): network effects keep out other competitors. I don't know what "unfair practices" are defined as, I just know that monopolies insulated from competition are bad. Somewhat analogous was Standard Oil's policy of dropping their prices below cost locally long enough for small competitors to go out of business, and then raising them afterwards. New competitors were prevented from entering because Standard Oil had a reliable threat of doing it again. This didn't require Standard Oil to apply horizontal leverage (i.e. using dominance in the market for one product to influence another).

Doesn't come near unfair practices though - nobody is being muscled out. They aren't using their market position to force anyone out - unless you want to pretend that deciding who can and can't use their services for whatever purpose is something they shouldn't be allowed to do, ethically or legally.

> I agree that "seize" is poor word choice, > but the fact that he gained a monopoly position > through legal competition does not negate the fact > that it's a monopoly.

Putting up a classified ads web site is dead simple. There are no barriers to entry other than the kind of technical competence displayed by high school kids, and five or ten bucks to fund your hosting account.

The fact that it is immensely difficult to attract users away from an established site does not make CL a monopoly. The fact that nobody cares that you have a "better mousetrap" does not make CL a monopoly.

> I wonder if Craig realizes he became a Microsoft-style monopoly.

Where I live, I hear people mention that they use Kijiji at least as much as I hear them mention Craigslist.

This isn't a personal attack. It's an observation. I sincerely lack a better way to characterize Craig's behavior. Since Craigslist is as small as it is and is named after the founder, it's very difficult to explain these seemingly irrational decisions without understanding the man behind them.

I think at heart he's a good guy, but he's clearly not thinking correctly here.

Hi Jeremy, thanks for writing about this. I actually think Craig has removed himself from the decision-making there, which probably explains the seeming conflict between his personality and the company's.

And it conveniently provides plausible deniability.

Regardless, it's craigs list and he can never be removed from us outsiders mentally connecting him with what CL does.

Yeah, I guess it might take a name change to get people to stop assuming that Craig is in charge.

He's in charge: he owns the place.

That's possible. However, if that's the case, I'm surprised Craig hasn't engaged at all on this issue. It would seem an awful lot of lousy stuff is happening in his name.

Yeah, I'm not sure why neither of them have been willing to talk, I think a lot of this could be sorted out really quickly without the lawyers.

I think it is easily sorted out without the lawyers...stop using CL data on Padmapper. Problem solved. :)

Not thinking correctly? Or not thinking the way you think he should?

If someone told me that I was a principled jerk for not thinking the way they think, I'd ask "who's really the principled jerk here?"

This kind of diatribe -- along with the PadMapper debacle -- simply makes the participants look like naive entitled children.

You don't understand why Craig won't play in your sandbox, berate him for not doing so, shout at the world that CRAIG IS A MEANIE.

Yet, Craigslist is phenomenally successful, and has an enviable organization model that has allowed them to stay true to what matters to them. The fact that these things don't matter to you does not make them wrong.

Craigslist has a "lifestyle" business with revenue numbers that would make any startup green with envy, and it seems to me that you -- and others like you -- can't get your head around the fact that Craig (and Craigslist) is so successful, and yet they do not want to play your game.

If you think Craigslist sucks, then either make a better one, or figure out how to work with Craigslist within a framework that does not run counter to their established ethos. That probably means no venture capital, and no standard corporate organizational model.

Simply taking what you want -- or haranguing them openly for not operating the way you would like -- is simply childish petulance.

The point is that, due to network effects and first-mover advantage, it's way harder to displace craigslist than building a better product.

Now, that's not illegal on craig/craigslist's part, but he can either be an openness-advocating philanthropreneur, as he tends to brand himself, or he can be a lockdown value extractor with a legal team, as it seems they're on their way to becoming. Can't be both.

Oh, boo hoo! He did the hard work. He earned the first mover advantage. Go be disruptive without being a thief. Make a compelling product that steals his users, not his data.

> Now, that's not illegal on craig/craigslist's part, but he can either be an openness-advocating philanthropreneur, as he tends to brand himself, or he can be a lockdown value extractor with a legal team, as it seems they're on their way to becoming. Can't be both.

So say The Police Of Moral Rectitude? I don't really see the point here. Craigslist isn't actively harming the industry, they're just running their own businesses. How they choose to do so is their own concern, and they have no obligation to give their business away to people that want to replace them.

>This kind of diatribe... >If you think Craigslist sucks, then either make a better one

The first step to making a better one is to realize there is a problem with the current one.

The second step is to make everyone else realize there is a problem with the current one (by making a big stink out of it).

The third step is to make a better one.

I think we're just getting to step two.

> The second step is to make everyone else realize there is a problem with the current one (by making a big stink out of it).

If that's true, then the conversation would be about the product, not about how Craiglist's disinterest in bootstrapping other people's businesses just isn't fair.

That's the difference between a product that is built as a castle and building an product that supports an ecosystem. These are design and business choices for the product. The interoperability of a device is not a separate consideration from it's design and construction, and in the same way, the accessibility methods available for a web service is not just a pure business decision, but is also a fundamental element of the products design. There is also no rule to say that ideas of fairness cannot be included as part of a product specification.

What's your point? Fairness to whom? Why is Craigslist under any obligation to be "fair"?

They're especially under no obligation to define "fair" entirely according to the whims of those who would like to grab a piece of craigslist's pie.

I'm not saying they are under an obligation to be fair, just pointing out that considerations of fairness are part of a conversation about the product. There is no special dividing wall here that excludes interoperability policy from everything else, when it comes to making a criticism of a service.

While there's obviously a bit more nuance in your general idea, in this particular case, you may as well criticize McDonalds for not giving away their hamburgers.

Not much point in doing that given that they already do give away hamburgers - http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/Restaurants/Student-offer....

I could fairly criticize them for tempting students to eat awful food though, I suppose. Something like, "How dare McDonalds give away their hamburgers!" ;)

I think you are purposefully missing the point. He means they might as well give away every hamburger they make for free.

Well, that would make no sense in comparison as having a certain level of open API access is not the same thing as giving away your entire business. In fact, if you do it well, surely it drives costumers to you as it widens their available exposure.

CL has determined that displaying their listings on sites other than their own hurts rather than helps their brand which is why they don't offer an API.

Which loops back to what I was saying to start with, which is that is a business and design decision that it is completely fair to criticise if people want to.

Craigslist have decided on a strategy, and it might go well for them, or it might not. Given the amount of apparent annoyance they have stirred up, it might well backfire.

No, they don't owe anyone anything and if they decided to shut down the entire service tomorrow so they could spend more time bowling, that would be completely within their rights.

But people are free to critisise them for their actions if they wish and so I was taking issue with flatline's original assertion that discussing issues of fairness on API access was effectively outside the remit of fair criticism of the product itself.

I actually find CL's actions entirely rational. A business is about building value and services such as pad mapper decrease that value. Its easy to say PadMapper is just an overlay on top of Craigslist data - but its not. PadMapper aggregates data from other providers and in fact allows users to post to it directly.

If I owned PadMapper my business plan would be to leech listings from all over the place in an effort to grab traffic to the point where people use my service (and pay to list there) first. Isn't that the goal? CL doesn't want these types of services to build their market on the backs of the value they've created for their customers (people who post) and their audience.

I agree that it's better to ascribe the responsibilities for Craigslist's recent actions to the company, not Craig Newmark.

That aside, the company's actions clearly merit calling them jerks. Their customers are trying to sell, rent and employ. Craigslist forbids them to do so via any other means. Acting against the interests of its customers makes a company a jerk.

In what way is Craigslist forbidding its customers to advertise by other means?

The rhetoric on this is getting ridiculous.

Craigslist now requires an exclusive license to submissions. The rhetoric is what it is because Craigslist's behavior is appalling.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/craigslist-tighte...

EDIT: This article is better: http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/01/craigslist-now-wants-your-p...

Craigslist isn't saying you can't post the same information elsewhere.

They're saying they have exclusive license to your post on Craigslist.

It's a seemingly subtle distinction, I'll give you that, but it in no way prevents the user from posting the same info elsewhere.

You're missing the point. If I post the same ad directly on PadMapper (let's say), how does one know if PadMapper scraped it from Craigslist or I cross posted it?

The way it reads, and the only way I can imagine it could be enforced, is that you are granting Craigslist the exclusive right to advertise that item or at the very least the exact text you used to advertise that item.

Either way, it's ridiculously heavy handed.

From Craigslist's submission process:

"Clicking ‘Continue’ confirms that craigslist is the exclusive licensee of this content"

If a user then takes their post and submits it to another site that asks for a license to the post, the user has breached their contract with Craigslist. I see no evidence for the significance of the distinction you describe.

This seems like a fine point, and I wonder if it's actually true. Has there really been any case of a person being sued or threatened by Craigslist for cross-posting their ad - that is, posting their ad on Craigslist and also somewhere else? Keep in mind we're far afield here of what happened with PadMapper, which didn't have anything to do with anyone cross-posting their own ads.

This policy is new, so there can't be examples of Craigslist using it against users. They probably will never use it against users. However, I don't enter contracts I don't plan to abide by. No one should.

Anyone can sit and judge on anything they wish, you can judge someone's business, their politics, their religion, whatever. You might think it is impolite, however there isn't any hard and fast rule that says anyone has to be polite either.

You are judging that other people aren't allowed to judge someone else on the service they provide. Why do you feel that you can tell them the terms of what is reasonable behaviour while in the same breath tell them that it is not their place to do the same to others?

I read it as a critique of Craig's business decisions, not a personal attack.

Craig is morally entitled to provide or not provide whatever service he wants. He is not morally entitled to behave like an organized crime boss and shut down other people's services by threat of armed force.

I seriously don't understand the Craigslist drama.

It's an incredibly basic service that is astounding because of its network effect.

So if you want to compete with it, make a BETTER service. Don't rely on them. Adoption isn't going to be instantaneous, but if PadMapper's approach really is so much better than why do they need to bootstrap themselves with Craigslist-affiliated data?

> if PadMapper's approach really is so much better than why do they need to bootstrap themselves with Craigslist-affiliated data?

Because as you said: (massive) network effects. The claim is that they are effectively a monopoly. You can't tell someone "Sure it won't be instantaneous, but if you think you're so much better than Standard Oil, just go out-compete them."

SO physically owned all the oil-wells. Physical ownership is much, much different than network effects.

Why? Everyone needs to come to the network owner, and it isn't possible for new competitors to create their own useful network. The network effect is really the exact analogy for information-exchange businesses as physical capital was for businesses selling physical goods.

Except that in one sense the network effect is even stronger: oil wells can be divvied up by a trust-busting government (and will still function) but some networks only work reasonably when monolithic. This is an argument for a monopoly administered by the government (like for road infrastructure) or a private non-profit (like wikipedia).

No, in SO's case, their competitors were physically incapable of entering the market (because they couldn't purchase stakes).

With network effects, the barrier to entry is less for competitors to join the market and there is nothing physically forcing a user to use a monopoly. A great competitor has a realistic chance of entering your market. Plus, a slight shift in public perception and a Monopoly can become a failed business in no time.

Network effects may be a significant impediment to a small business attempting to enter a market, but lets not throw around the 'monopoly' label so easily.

SO only had a 64% market share when it was broken up. Competitors weren't prevented from entering the oil market because they were physically incapable of buying oil wells. It was because SO had enough market share to greatly influence prices through unilateral action, and to threaten business partners with crippling retaliation for dealing with SO competitors.

I would guess CL has, in most classified markets, more than 80% market share. The amount of market share necessary for monopoly powers varies between industries (based, presumably, on the barriers to entry), but I don't think I'm being casual with the term "monopoly". Especially considering the power of network effects.

Is it not obvious that CL can only get away with its crappy UI because it has overwhelming market share? The fact that it is immune from normal competitive pressures is the defining feature.

No its not obvious because I don't have a problem with their UI. Most CL users don't. They have a clean UI that doesn't overwhelm you. Posting is dead simple.

Anyway, at this point, neither of us will convince the other. So... good day to you.

I don't understand the drama either, but everyone knows it isn't that easy. As has been said many times, their network effect is what matters here, not features. I use craigslist and I hate it (seriously, something about the site irks me) but I know I have no choice if I want the best chance of finding something. I used padmapper and loved it; it was a better service.

For a good example of how strong network effects play into things, look at Google+. Seriously, if Google couldn't kill Facebook by building a better service (IMO), how do you expect a company with exactly 0 existing users to usurp CL?

TBH I don't have a good solution because I don't think regulation is the answer here. Up until about today I would have said the best value add for a service is to start by targeting sellers, and grow the buyer market later (e.g. use service X to post ads to CL, <other marketplace>, etc)

> It's an incredibly basic service that is astounding because of its network effect.

> ...

> If PadMapper's approach really is so much better than why do they need to bootstrap themselves with Craigslist-affiliated data?

You already said it. Because of the network effect.

I understand what you mean, but network effects aren't unsurmountable. I'd argue that social networks are the pinnacle of services sustained by a network effect, but there's still fluidity (MySpace was a pretty terrible platform sustained by a strong network -- until it wasn't.)

Much as it would be less hypocritical of CL to share, which would seem to align with their publicly stated values, they won't.

The key is to disrupt innovatively. CL's structure sets a high bar, but not an impossible one. PM is one of the first alternatives that looks plausible in a major portion of CL's space (though there are also some job boards that seem pretty viable, several of which also re-list CL postings).

Edit: By DeMenthon's own comments, CL offered a data-sharing agreement for $5000 + 10% of revenues. Really, that's reasonable on CL's part.

http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-07-25-craigslist-goes...

"They’re not concerned with fixing anything for newspapers because Craig refuses to accept responsibility for helping break them."

Newmark's repeated donations and support to both new online journalism endeavors and old-line journalism institutes like Knight Foundation are a matter of public record. An example Google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=craig+newmark+donation+(journ...

Newmark has expressly stated that he makes these donations of time and money partly because of the role Craigslist played in disrupting newspapers. I find it especially impressive that he does this given that he has nothing to apologize for. Newspaper classifieds were insanely expensive and huge cash cows.

Keep in mind that I was explaining to a newspaper publisher why Craigslist would not work with them to help them make more money. Craig's focus is on building tools that help fact-check stories and help news organizations remain trustworthy, not efforts to help increase monetization.

That's fine, but it's a bit like polishing the brass on the Titanic.

From NiemanLab:

"Craig Newmark’s most recently announced project, CraigConnects, is, as best as I can tell, a way of funneling Newmark’s attention capital towards (mostly) nonprofit organizations."

Attention capital is nice and welcome, but hardly the thing that will save good journalism.

This sounds like another person who is pissed off he can't have a piece of the CL pie (read: money).

> I figured the reasonable response from Craig would have been to hire Romy and his partner or buy their technology. It’s literally what every reasonable company in the world does when innovative young people come along and make something your users want.

Why should I as a CEO be expected to cater to your whims of how you think I should run my company? I hear about people complaining all the time about how ugly and cluttered Amazons website is. Would we all be hating Jeff Bezos as much as we do Craig if someone started scraping all of the Amazon.com product reviews and organizing them in a web2.0-html5-ajax-startup-cool manner and Jeff sued their pants off?

Craigslist is a business. Once you stop thinking of it as a non-profit, everything Craig does makes sense.

Do you think PadMapper (if they were to overtake CL) or AirBnb or Google or anyone else will let anyone crawl their data and disrupt their revenue stream without putting up a fight? Of course not.

The cognitive dissonance here is simply caused by people thinking CL is a non-profit, which he has shown it is not.

I don't understand personally how padmapper interrupts Craigslist's revenue stream. All posts direct back to CL.

I suppose you could argue that if padmapper found a new awesome data source to crawl & became so big they no longer needed craigslist and people stop bothering to check CL for rental postings THEN padmapper could be affecting their revenue stream.

Padmapper is for-profit, just like Craigslist. Padmapper wants to eat away at CL by taking listings directly through Padlister, which is how Padmapper makes money.

Wow, I didn't even know about Padlister until today. I understand Craigslist's point of view a bit better now.

I think the standard response here is that CL clearly leaves massive amounts of money on the table. It can't be modeled well as a for-profit company. Whether or not it can be modeled as a non-profit with a coherent philosophy is debatable, but just pointing out that some of its actions seem profit-driven does not eliminate the apparent conflict with other actions.

> It can't be modeled well as a for-profit company

I'm not an MBA, but why the hell not? They entice people to become regular users with all the free stuff, building a network, allowing them to make an enormous profit off of the few products they do sell.

If they started charging for other things besides job ads (and the other 1 or 2 things they charge for), they could very well start losing money because of people refusing to pay and going elsewhere.

Here, "Money left on the table" doesn't mean "short-term money that would have long term negative consequences for the business". I means free money, that is money after you take into account the effects of various price changes. You may disagree and claim that CL's strategy of charging for nothing besides a few NY/LA business listings is for-profit optimal--and therefore that there's really no free money--but you'd be in a minority.

Ah, I forgot that the paid listings were only for certain locations, not just certain categories.

I do in fact argue that CL's strategy is profit-optimizing as a market-making and competition-avoiding strategy:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4324889

Sure it can.

The money left on the table builds value by:

1. Leaving very little profit margin for any potential competitor.

2. Ensuring a continued large network effect, CL's principle source of value.

I reply here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325126

I'm used to being in the minority.

I'd like to offer up a different scenario:

Craig Newmark, the Guy with Fuck You Money

This guy is customer support. Yes, he's more than that, but he has enough money to focus on the part of the business he likes - sitting in his walled garden, pruning the content. God that has to be fulfilling.

Why criticize him for that?

A while back I wrote a greasemonkey script for craigslist that allowed you to filter out any for-sale listings that didn't have pictures. It was called, NoPicsNoService, and after I was done I emailed Craig the link. He emailed me back that day and said it was cool.

Less than a year later, that feature was built into craigslist.

Well I'm glad it took them less than a year to add another condition to their sql query.

Also, a checkbox.

People that say Craigslist is broken are utterly, incomprehensibly, wrong. Its an ugly website. It lacks features people on this website think it needs. But average people love it AS IS. The tone of this article makes it seem like Craigslist killed the newspaper industry-and paints Craig as the bad guy. Newspapers failed to adapt. Full period, stop. Craig invented a tiny website for his neighborhood and it went crazy popular and spread across the country. His product isn't what we want-but it is what he and most of the people using it want.

For me the site nearly causes physical pain to look for anything specific on. For every non-tech person I know, they still think it's the best site ever made, and some of them sit on it all day like facebook addicts.

And I'll be damned, but when I wanted to get rid of some trash in my house that I thought someone else might've found useful, I had the ad up in 20 minutes. Before the sun went down, all of it was gone and I had a couple of $20s in my pocket.

I didn't have every move monetized, they didn't make me pay per message after the 3rd response, and I'm pretty sure they actually deleted my ad [at some point] after I pressed delete. I trust Newmark's stewardship, and hopefully this Padmapper thing shakes them up enough to introduce a non-intrusive interface for apartment hunting that makes my head hurt less.

This misses the philosophy which I have been told is behind craiglist's behavior: a sort of extreme localism. They want to try to keep craigslist informal, encourage bartering instead of sales, etc.

I think there are some insights buried in this philosophy, it's just that in this case craiglist is very wrong. If you actually want to understand the man and the organization (rather than just bad-mouth them) you need to address this issue.

A generally good post, but the claim that Newmark "refuses to take responsibility" for "breaking" newspapers is something of a howler. Newspapers do not have a monopoly on watchdog or investigative journalism, and even if there is less of that sort of reporting nowadays (a claim itself worthy of investigation and fact-checking), it can't be blamed on any one guy, no matter how successful his business.

To be honest, I didn't get the "principled" impression out of anything written here - I think the author was just trying to soften the blow a little bit...

I think that Craig actually isn't behind these decisions, though, which would explain the apparent conflict between his friendly attitude and the unfriendly attitude of the company overall.

The company goes to some effort to maintain that "we're almost a non-profit" angle though; Jim Buckmaster's "About" page calls himself a communist, for example:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/jim_buckmaster

Like it or not, Craig is basically the brand identity for Craigslist. It's going to be awfully hard for Craigslist to separate themselves meaningfully from Craig. The more discordance there is between the two, the worse it is for their brand image, whatever the motivation.

And now Buckmaster owns your posts for the benefit of the community, sounds perfectly fitting with someone who describes themselves as communist.

Soon they will roll out a special section of craigslist apartments that looks like Jony Ive designed it but it's only for party members.

I think this raises an interesting question about the nature of natural monopolies in technology, and the lack of competition caused by that effect.

Craigslist is powerful cause of it's network effects, and it's getting away with what is most probably an inferior service.

My Eric DeMenthon's own admission, Craigslist offered a data sharing/licensing agreement of $5000 and 10% of revenues. That's pretty reasonable. If PadMapper can't cover this through its own business model, perhaps there just isn't much money on the table?

http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-07-25-craigslist-goes...

"Principled businessman" seems a bit more fair than Jeremy's blog post would suggest.

And, as always, there's a lot nobody but Craig (and Jim) and Eric know. I'm seeing one heck of a PR game being waged.

That is not fully accurate. Craigslist offered a licensing agreement for MOBILE ONLY: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/craigslist-sues-p...

Given that PadMapper is a desktop-focused website (and the mobile experience is terrible, so I imagine 90% of their use is desktop), this is sort of a non-starter. It would be as if the Apple were willing to license Samsung their design patents but only on the Newton.

Web only? ORLY? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.padmapper&....

Edit: oh, not what you said. Granted, yes, I found the PM desktop tool much more useful than mobile, though mobile was good enough to use when I was roaming around town.

At this point, it seems as though journalism made an extraordinarily dire mistake in relying principally on revenue streams that are entirely distinct from their central business. Shouldn't journalism rather have sought to monetize the thing it does best - journalism? If it had, maybe it wouldn't be in this mess right now.

This seems a strange comment to make, given how much of the web is advertising funded. Or do you think Google should charge users a subscription fee?

> He has very odd priorities. Craig spends his days manually removing flagged spam in a terminal view. You and me, we can’t understand someone like this.

Is this true?

Remember, Craigslist's best-funded competitor is Kijiji/eBayClassifieds. Craigslist has alleged eBay improperly used its minority stake and one-time board seat at Craigslist to help launch Kijiji using proprietary knowledge of Craigslist.

An initial lawsuit over some of the issues in Delaware resulted in a split decision in 2010: eBay lost its board seat but the move by the other CL shareholders to dilute eBay's stake was reversed.

Another lawsuit in California appears to be still in a lengthy discovery process, more than a year after a judge ruled against eBay's motion to dismiss, if I'm interpreting the data here correctly:

http://webaccess.sftc.org/Scripts/Magic94/mgrqispi94.dll?APP...

As a result...

• Craigslist may seem paranoid but perhaps justifiably so

• Craiglist may not want to grant an inch to anyone that might then also be used by Kijiji/eBay, with their near-bottomless pockets, to embrace/extend/extinguish the Craiglist core service

• this sort of lengthy deep-discovery process can distract management and also impair internal communications/flexibility, knowing every word could become discovered fodder for a current (or future) lawsuit

Any assessment that Craigslist is being a 'jerk' about competitive issues, without considering this giant factor, is missing a giant part of the picture.

tl;dr: whine, whine whine.

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