The Greatest Social Media Site Is Craigslist (Yes, Craigslist)

If there was one thing craigslist could improve on, it would be managing the spam listings. I think we all can close our eyes and imagine how these listings look: dozens and dozens of identical listings on a single point on a map about some scam used car loan, or an apartment that doesn't actually exist, or stolen playstations. If its so easy for us regular craiglist users to see this spam and subconsciously tune it out, then why is it such a hard problem for the craiglist developers to establish what I would guess are pretty trivial filters to set up to catch these listings that I stress again are posted dozens and dozens of times identically over the years? Seems they have tacitly acknowledge the issue with the hide duplicates checkbox, but why even have the user need to check that at all? I don't think anyone wants to see duplicate spam.

Craigslist really nails practical and boring design. There have been countless small updates and improvements in functionality and appearance without falling victim to passing fads.

I do wish it was more streamlined to create a listing directly in the category you're currently viewing.

Ah, a chance to wheel out one of my favourite quotes ever.

> Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, caused lots of head-scratching Thursday as he tried to explain to a bunch of Wall Street types why his company is not interested in “monetizing” his ridiculously popular Web operation. Appearing at the UBS global media conference in New York, Mr. Buckmaster took questions from the bemused audience, which apparently could not get its collective mind around the notion that Craigslist exists to help Web users find jobs, cars, apartments and dates — and not so much to make money.

> Wendy Davis of MediaPost describes the presentation as a “a culture clash of near-epic proportions.” She recounts how UBS analyst Ben Schachter wanted to know how Craigslist plans to maximize revenue. It doesn’t, Mr. Buckmaster replied (perhaps wondering how Mr. Schachter could possibly not already know this). “That definitely is not part of the equation,” he said, according to MediaPost. “It’s not part of the goal.”

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/...

> In 2018, Craigslist permanently shuttered its personal ads section following a federal amendment to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a bedrock piece of legislation that enabled early websites to flourish by removing liability for user-generated content.

https://LokiList.com provides a (somewhat more private) replacement for the lost Craigslist personals. Since websites are now liable for user's content, users can only post text. Users may include a Session Private Messenger ID in their post or share their preferred contact information in their post body.

I feel like I can't really trust anything on Craigslist now, so I don't really use it. I did post my furniture for free pickup on there last year, but that's been about it in the past ten years. I remembered it being pretty much dead from then, but I just checked it again and it seems to still be getting quite a few posts, so I guess that was just a false memory.

I also used to check it for software jobs way back in the day, and got a couple interviews from it, but that seems totally dead now. I see 5 postings in the software jobs section, and none of them are anywhere close to Chicago.

Despite Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist is still great for most typical local classifieds. Furniture, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, musical instruments, electronics, garage/estate sales, etc. And it's wide open: you don't have to participate in someone's walled garden to read, respond or post.

The fact that its simple -- some would say ugly; I simply think "utilitarian" -- design has endured with very little change for two decades has a lot to teach about UI and graphic design.

chucking a platform onto the internet without a form of high touch maintenance of the community is I think what causes social media to die. Its very difficult to buy on craigslist for the reasons other commenters have mentioned.

craigslist is dead, the news should be how marketplace quietly disrupted craigslist and the power of Meta integrating any product. if you're a B2C company and Meta decides to compete with you, you have no chance.

I saw a story on HN the other day about how NYC hotels are more expensive following an Airbnb ban.

Back in the mid-2000s, Craigslist was Airbnb in NY. I never stayed at a hotel when I visited. There were always rooms and apartments available to rent, especially on weekends. In 2008, I booked a ground-floor apartment in Brooklyn for $80/night for myself and some college friends.

I miss that era. Airbnb reminds me of the Jobs quote about Dropbox: it's a feature, not a product. Craigslist did lots of things, that's what was great about it. It specifically eschewed the Silicon Valley ethos of trying to turn a side hustle into an IPO, and the mass regulation-skirting that involves.

CL intentionally flew under the radar, and thus never created a situation where where investors and speculators reduced the supply of rental/for-sale housing to create inventory for Airbnb. With CL, we could have good things that didn't get enshittified as soon as the VC play money dried up.

My son believes this.

Alright, but what's the actual best minimalist social media?

I'm so fed up with Meta/X and while Reddit is decent, it's no way to connect with friends or carry on conversations that last longer than 2 hours.

I'm convinced that many people feel this way, and while I'm sure there will be a big "don't reinvent the wheel" response here, convincing mom, grandma, and that guy from high school to make and maintain a blog/website/rss feed is a no go in reality.

(And yes, I and my imaginary cohort are ready and willing to pay a monthly fee!!)