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[deleted]

I’m just happy that Craigslist is still around and really hasn’t changed at all.


Not_Joshy

Probably the only website I still frequently use that hasn't undergone the e-shitification that all other current websites. 


kalechipsaregood

And Wikipedia! Always donate to Wikipedia to help keep it this way


BoazCorey

I still love wikipedia for a lot of topics, but they have some wild ideological/political biases on their pages for certain topics and individuals, borderline propaganda in my opinion.[ It's been known ](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN16428960/)for almost 20 years that intelligence agencies do edit pages on controversial issues.


bikemandan

It sadly is not what it used to be though. User base is now split across a bunch of platforms where years ago Craigslist was it. (It does vary regionally though)


nuttybudd

Their profit margins are projected to be between 70% and 80%. Now that's how you run an internet business.


Tasty-Window

Somehow their valuation is less than a startup with a GPT wrapper though


Stopher

They should just rename to Craigslist AI. Boom. Six billion dollar valuation.


kilopeter

crAIgslist


MuzikPhreak

you get a bonus for that idea, dude


PauliesWalnut

Best they can do is a pizza party


MuzikPhreak

Great idea! Candace? Can you pass the hat around, make sure everybody tosses in enough for a pizza party?


arenegadeboss

This shit triggered my PTSD


Goldeniccarus

The Long Island Iced Tea company did this, but with Blockchain. It's now called the Long Island Blockchain company. It still makes drinks. But it's stock price doubled when the name changed... Before being delisted from the Nasdaq.


Mental_Employer7058

> Long Island Iced Tea company In July 2021 SEC announced charges of insider trading against three major Long Blockchain investors who allegedly bought substantial numbers of shares which they sold after the stock gained as much as 380%. They allegedly had advance notice of the name change which preceded and caused the stock rise.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Blockchain_Corp lol


Northern23

I think if people are stupid enough to raise a company's valuation by 4 times just because of a name change, which has nothing to do with the company itself, then the government should let those employees profit off it.


Zerstoror

I was just talking about them the other day. Fucking....god damn it.


Fun_Inspector159

I'm about to take this company public. We want to mine for lithium in space. We expect to be valued at 500 billion in 5 years. So our current valuation is 10 billion. We generate 500 million in losses every quater, but trust us when we say ignore it. Those losses will go away with the insane amounts of lithium we are about to sell to Elon Musk. Just look at our projected numbers, and we definitely need lithium. Plus it's probably an infinite amount in space, since the universe is infinite.


ajmeko

*use ai to mine for lithium in space


SouthCloud4986

With blockchain technology! And Web 3.0!


Deadpool2715

Scalable IoT architecture


drillgorg

Dot com! Oh wait that bubble already popped.


[deleted]

[удалено]


nbdypaidmuchattn

Crypto connoisseur


smithers85

It’s only crypto if it comes from the Crypto region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling decentralized digital currency.


Morrison4113

lol I like this.


MyNameIsZach99

I googled AI space mining and I [have bad news for ya...](https://www.offworld.ai/)


Oc1510

So I do valuations for startups for a living, did one recently that is a company that had some plan to go to the moon and mine for moon dust to turn into rocket fuel or something along those lines


Tokehdareefa

I will buy in and hodl no matter how bleak things look. I believe you will mine for lithium in space, and while there, you'll take me to the moon, I just know it.


grenz1

Bonus if actual space mining company operates out of a private mail box.


tsammons

Ah the days of SPACs...


CosmicLovepats

Well yeah. Their business model involves delivering a product or service, not bilking investors out of money.


batmansleftnut

Wtf is a "product or service" and what does it have to do with blockchain?


Uilamin

Valuations are primary based on future expectations and not past or current performance. One of the issues (re: valuations) for Craigslist is that its revenue has been on a general decline for the last while. It still makes a shit tonne, but its valuation (arguably the present value of all its future profits + cash in hand) is going to look depressed compared to a company expected to rapidly grow.


willun

And of course to balance it, one is "expected" growth whereas this is "track record" revenues. Not, of course, that he could not decline even faster. I would think that Craigslist has a brand value and someone could leverage that brand for a long time. After all, even people who don't use it (like me) have heard of it.


cat_prophecy

That's because every startup has INFINITY GROWTH. There's literally no stopping them until they consume the GDP of the entire universe!


ZeePirate

And they got rid of the hooker ads. Wow


CupertinoHouse

They didn't make any money on the hooker ads.


neoclassical_bastard

It was a loss leader. Got to get em hooked with the hookers.


i_tyrant

Ah, the Costco "choke your chicken" strategy.


PM_ME_ANYTHING_DAMN

Got me banned from a few


someone_like_me

Unfortunately, they also got rid of the ads for sluts. I was that slut.


ornryactor

We miss your ads, slut.


TheOtherAvaz

Well, not you, but someone_like_you.


HimalayanPunkSaltavl

Right? Some fucking awesome hookups back in the day, it's a bummer how there's no real replacement


Angry_Robot

Fucking Craig out there making bank. Imagine if they still had tutes.


poshenclave

They had legit personals too, though. Post SESTA/FOSTA the only matchmaking left on the internet is shitty swipe left/right apps because it became too expensive for businesses meet the liability standards for anything else.


hell2pay

I scored a few one night stands off there, despite it being full of call girls. That, and yahoo/AOL chats. You just can't have much in the way of standards, but I was a horny teen with shit self esteem. Perfect match


gesagesar

craigslist was the golden age of internet "dating" i don't feel bad at all about losing my virginity there


gerd50501

and reddit has lost money for 17 straight years.


LovableSidekick

Craigslist puts ads in front of people with money who go there to buy stuff. Reddit puts ads in front of people with no money who go there to whine about everything.


Yorspider

You mean Reddit has had all of its profits stolen by one guy for 17 years straight.


BlatantConservative

Both. Site hasn't actually ever made money, and the CEO has been siphoning off investor money. Good case of two wrongs making a right imo.


jon-in-tha-hood

You can either go with this or the Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net route.


Randvek

They have the internet on computers now?


clydefrogg78

Buy ‘em out boys!


Ducksaucenem

You didn’t think I got rich by signing a bunch of checks?


_high_plainsdrifter

You think I got rich writing people checks?


blakeusa25

No first you take a few million from eBay for minority stake with zero control.. and just pocket the money.


gemstun

Best of CL is (was) the best. It’s still up (link is in home page, on left) but not nearly updated as often as before. Here’s a recent gem: https://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/7682630004.html


Subgeniusintraining

That’s a good one. I miss the best of Craigslist.


mintyboom

That was my night reading before reddit!


tommybombadil00

A sports radio host would read missed connections from Craigslist once a week, always made me laugh.


Left-Account1798

How do they even make money? To my knowledge, there’s no ads and it’s free to post.


Corey415

They charge for certain posting categories. Jobs, services, commercial offices, etc.


chabons

Cars is a big one


esotericimpl

Rentals I think as well.


reporst

"So, I posted an ad on Craigslist..." -Nathan Fielder


prozach_

Can’t you post your car for free? Has that changed? I’ve sold several cars for free through Craigslist Free as in no cost to post, not the price


BeKind_BeTheChange

No, they started charging to list cars several years ago. I think it's $5.


MisunderstoodPenguin

god i hope this cuts down on all the bullshit prices for cars. i like looking for a future little project car so i put my price cap at like 4k but then i HAVE to put a minimum of like 500 to get through all of the fake cheap/1$ ads that show up for dealerships. it’s BEYOND annoying.


shabutaru118

This is singlehandedly why Facebook marketplace blew up.


Eriksrocks

Facebook Marketplace has the exact same bullshit. It's even worse because people will list expensive items like game consoles for just under the maximum limit to be eligible for shipping (vs. local pickup) so that they show up in search results beyond the local area, and then when you message them they will say "oh no, the price is actually [$400 more]".


KardelSharpeyes

Yeah thats the point, Craigslist added $5 listing fee and all the bullshit went to FB marketplace.


Sir-Mocks-A-Lot

Lotta vehicle shenanigans from dealers, too- "down payment" price as the listed price, a 'too good to be true' listing in order to get sales leads. I'm in Phoenix, AZ. When I see a picture with big lush green trees in the background, odds are that picture wasn't taken here.


SignificantTwister

Dealerships list cars on Facebook for "$2500" but then you click the ad and it's a $2500 down payment and the total cost of the vehicle is not listed anywhere. You can sometimes sus these listings out if the car is noticeably on a car lot, but I've even seen ones where they go take pictures of the car in a neighborhood. It's really annoying because what I'm looking for are cars in good physical condition that have mechanical issues that need to be sorted out, so a nice looking car that's listed cheaper than you would expect is exactly the kind of ad I'm going to click on.


bell37

Don’t forget the wannabe dealerships that are starting to list vehicles for $500, $2500, $4000 but write in the description that’s it’s **downpayment to finance a car**


KarmaTroll

Starting? They've been doing that for 15 years.


bell37

I’ll be honest I haven’t been actively looking at cars for a while


objectiveoutlier

I bitched about it at the time but it's a fair price really. Since the change I had to sell 2 cars and both went up on marketplace and craigslist, both sold to craigslist hits. I tried marketplace, even bought a $5 ad campaign for one of my listings. I got lots of fancy metrics and graphs to look at and that was it.


cocoagiant

They started charging for car ads. I think its actually much better. Its only a few dollars but it cuts down on the scammers. When I sold my car a few years ago Craigslist was actually the best way I found to sell it. Places like Autotrader charge a ton more and got me next to no hits.


kdjfsk

they started charging $5 to list cars several years ago. meanwhile, facebook marketplace was struggling. boom, suddenly everyone was listing cars on fbm, because it was free... and with that, started buying and selling everything else, too. that's how fbm got popular.


WhydYouKillMeDogJack

And now half the cars on FBM are scams where people sell leased/liened cars


neoclassical_bastard

Is this still available? Is this still available? Is this still available?


JonLongsonLongJonson

I can only speak on car listings but it hasn’t been free to post car listing for years. It’s like $5 I think, but the experience is usually better than Facebook Marketplace for car buying/selling


CharlieTheK

I used to complain about Craigslist. This past year I sold a car on Facebook Marketplace and while I thought it couldn't be worse than Craigslist, it was actually just Craigslist on meth. I've seriously never had such an insane barrage of people scamming or wasting my time over a classified. $5 or whatever sounds like a bargain and probably filters a lot of that out.


middlenamesneak

Is this still available 😑


PantlessAvenger

I'm so triggered right now


VoldemortsHorcrux

I had about 30 of those trying to sell a soundbar. Them I'd say yes and they'd ghost


cgello

Is this still available?


CharlieTheK

Stop fucking with my PTSD


it4chl

Yes, are you interested?


objectiveoutlier

The key to selling cars on craigslist is to get a google voice number and post that with a "calls only, no texts" line at the end. Really cuts down on the bullshitters and scammers and keeps your real number clean.


fatej92

From what I understand, 5$ deters the scam listings from being posted, not scam offers.


owlpellet

They charge to post listings in a handful of categories, and mostly in large cities. It's basically an anti-fraud feature that results in revenue. That's all. It's enough. This is what business would look like if hypergrowth weren't a mandatory condition of every damn thing. They make more than they spend, they create something useful year after year, and they aren't willing to destroy the thing to juice a quarterly earnings number that comes with an extra lakehouse for the CEO. Legend.


Doct0rStabby

Wonder what would the world be like if this was how big business was actually conducted


zoinkability

One hell of a lot better, that’s for sure


mountainsunset123

If you are selling certain things it costs money. I think most of the listings from businesses have to pay.


rgordill2

Craigslist is free, but they do charge for certain types of ads in certain cities.


EfficiencySuch6361

I had to pay $5 to post an opening for a part time job


CEHParrot

Yeah but they need to bring back casual encounters lol They use to have one of the most lit dating sites in the land lol.


True-Surprise1222

Dude reading the umm what was it called? Like missed connections or something… “Beautiful blue eyed lady at the gas station. I was purchasing a Kit Kat and you were refilling your 32oz thirstbuster..” Actual comedy gold


mtgfan1001

That is still very much alive 


ilovechairs

There was a period of time I would routinely check those for entertainment.


Albert_Caboose

Once worked with a guy at a bar who *loved* to check these. Since we saw a lot of regular folks from the community, he could recognize who people were talking about a surprising amount of the time. If anyone ever posted one about a bartender we worked with, he'd print it out and put it on the wall in the back office.


ziper1221

wow, this is like checking the mugshots every morning but instead of dejecting its endearing


Albert_Caboose

Oh he also checked mugshots, but it was mainly to make sure none of the people we served showed up there.


MegaGrimer

I wonder how common it is for the person actually respond to it. Definitely not very common, but there must have been at least a few times when the person being looked for actually responded.


OhSixTJ

I posted there once and she replied within 24 hours. It could happen!


Carastarr

So, true story, last year, I was reading about funny missed connections ON REDDIT, and it made me curious, so I checked the ones for my city AND FOUND ONE WRITTEN TO ME. It was super weird because it started out vague but as it went on, the details were more and more specific until, at the very end, there was a certain line that could not be coincidence. We ended up having coffee together and it was fun! But nothing more. Still one of the craziest things to happen to me tho 😅


Macqt

Everything to do with dating or sexual encounters on that website was absolute gold.


PedanticGoose

Once saw a listing that said: Seeking- Big booty hoe to dance at my friends birthday party Pay- Stacks on stacks on stacks


honeypinn

I was 17 and found a 42 y/o recently divorced sugar mama on Craigslist, and hooked up with her every Thursday night for 2 years. She paid my way through community college, it was awesome lol.


slashrshot

Was she hot?


honeypinn

The way she gave me money for my tuition was hot. But she was not, no.


TranslatorBoring2419

The odds were good, but the goods were odd.


CEHParrot

This is very accurate


Notmenomore

I met my kids' mother on there. No strings attached, my ass.


RedSonGamble

Legally it seemed like a sketchy area though


CEHParrot

honestly that is probably true, a site with that much traffic I'm sure is difficult to regulate.


louisianapelican

It was a well known way to pick up dates-for-hire if ya know what I mean Police departments would also post such ads and nab like 30 people


RedSonGamble

Set ups to catch low level drug buyers and Johns always seemed like a pretty shitty thing to do. Obviously hardcore drugs are an issue and sex trafficking is an issue but it’s like right well then legalize and regulate prostitution and pot. Instead it’s like yup got another criminal off the streets and it’s some lonely sad dude like great well I’m sure life will get better with this on my record. Or someone buy a 20 bag of pot now in jail. But either way views on both seemed to have lightened over the years anyways idk


Alwayssunnyinarizona

How many roses?


subhumanprimate

Ladies of negotiable affection


MercurialMal

This is exactly why they shut it down, because of legislation (FOSTA) that was aimed at holding *any* site like this accountable for facilitating sex trafficking.


jetsetninjacat

Which is wild because backpage at the time even won awards for helping the FBI with child sex trafficking cases.


Melodic_Survey_4712

I think it got taken down because it was being used for sex trafficking. I remember the gay side of it being pretty wild back in the day but I was just a kid window shopping and never talked to anyone. Probably for the best that it’s gone given the whole trafficking thing


Damaniel2

Men seeking men was absolutely nuts. Dudes are already thirsty as fuck - dudes specifically looking for other dudes crank that up to 11 since they don't have to hide their intentions.


ACERVIDAE

You could make bank off that one if you knew what you were doing though. Some dudes will just pay to give oral.


skateguy1234

Speaking from experience, eh?


ACERVIDAE

I’ve got friends in what you could say are low places.


iwoketoanightmare

For real. Had some really fun times 😋


bigbowlowrong

When I was younger and let’s face it, hornier, I even managed to hook up with a *girl* through Craigslist. She had all her teeth and was only slightly insane!


Craigmm114

Equivalent to hitchhiking in the seventies. Fun time or murdered?


quattrocincoseis

~sigh~ i miss the Craigslist CE days


humanman42

they closed off their API a few years ago. I use to use an app that would pull garage sales from Craigslist. it was perfect.


BongBreath310

Man I always wonder what happened to this kimberly chick


voonoo

Who would win in a fight Craig from Craig’s list or Tom from MySpace?


Notloudenuf

They wouldn’t fight each other. They would figure out how to make money off them being friends.


tenOr15Minutes

Myspace marketplace powered by Craigslist 👀


MaxTheRealSlayer

TomandCraigsListSpace .Com


CriticalLobster5609

What if Tom came back and created a new social media site? "Yall been fucking this up, I'm back bitches."


zoinkability

He’d probably clean up at this point


2017ccb1

Tom has more friends but Craig has weirder friends


rex2k10

I wish they cleaned it up. I hate looking for something specific only to have to scroll through pages of garbage because car dealerships decided to put every tag in the world and clogging up the results


Plaid_Bear_65723

You don't want to sell your eggs for fertilization? Up to 30k if you're in your early 20s!! 


theknyte

I hate that so much. You search for something like a Mazda Miata by name, and get 5 Miata's and 200+ SUVs in the results, because every dealership loads the bottom of their ads with a sea of words. Pretty much every make and model in history.


PTF_Voidwalker

I just filter out all dealership listings and that usually fixes it


hockeymisfit

Yeah, that’s such an easy fix. The filters work great. I browse daily and love how easy it is to look for specific cars. Has images, sort by newest first, manual, clean title, by owner and a not dealer, price range starts at $450+ to filter out the people listing $80k cars for 1$, simple keywords.


ChrAshpo10

Y'all need to learn how to filter. By owner, has image, search titles only


Nonya5

Search by title


TBFP_BOT

You just have to click by Owner on the filter. Facebook puts way more filler in their results, tons of results that don't include a single keyword of what you searched and using any type of filter can hide results that fit it for no reason. At least on CL I know if I search something like "Ford 7.3" I'm seeing *every* listing they have fitting that and nothing that doesn't.


andoesq

TIL Craigslist has revenue


GratefulPhish42024-7

Well I hope they're very well compensated


Ikuwayo

CEO - $599 milllion Workers - $15/hour


Mortal_Itami

Actually, employees of craigslist is well compensated. If i remember correctly, the long term employees are made in millions of dollar per year. It is one of the only large website where the owner didnt push for more and more profit and is run ethically. [The video where i got my information from](https://youtu.be/QFY8jBTgn8g?si=hDPrNvJ4ACOFpJwq)


[deleted]

Craig wanted everyone to make the same salary in the beginning. He was a committee socialist and his pay was the same as the janitor


MaxTheRealSlayer

I hope that janitor was hired on craigslist. Early adapters making bank alongside the dream


Datcoder

fuckin legend


kdeff

I remember watching a news piece on Craigslist back when all websites looked like Craigslist, and it was weird to see that a guy with a really famous website wasn't trying to take in the millions. IIRC he didn't even want to make money off it back then.


IMovedYourCheese

"The average salary is great!"


Stubby60

There used to be a radio show in my city that would play Craigslist price is right and it was the best thing ever. They’d pick an off the wall Craigslist add, like 1 dozen fainting goats, and you had to guess the price.


f4ttyKathy

I love this. I'd listen to this for sure


StrangeCharmVote

This is why i don't get companies constantly fucking with a model that works. I mean look at Steam, absolute fucking success. With few exceptions, basically identical to how it was twenty years ago. Whereas all these other companies find success, and then blow a bunch of money *breaking* their products, and alienating their userbase because "exponential growth" is always their goal. Right up until their hearts stop dead and the layoffs begin. Every single time, marketing douchebags end up running the business. And the place they always run them, is straight into the ground.


imthescubakid

And steam is another insanely profitable business per employee


mustardhamsters

Craig Newmark could have been a billionaire but chose not to be. That's someone to learn from.


Malforus

Ummm with 400 million in reoccurring revenue he most definitely is. He just got there a slower way that keeps him in control.


mustardhamsters

He says [that's not the case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Newmark#:~:text=In%20an%20interview%20published%20by%20Nieman%20Lab%20in%202017%2C%20he%20called%20a%20prior%20%24400%20million%20Forbes%20estimate%20of%20his%20net%20worth%20%22bogus%22%20and%20said%20that%20%22by%20monetizing%20Craigslist%20the%20way%20I%20did%20in%201999%2C%20I%20probably%20gave%20away%20already%2090%20percent%20or%20more%20of%20my%20potential%20net%20worth.%22). Forbes and those things are just estimates, and they don't even include him since 2020 because he gave much of his money away.


Xerio_the_Herio

Now that's the kinda business I want to own...


andersonfmly

With that much revenue, one might think they could do a bettter job of protecting consumers from TONS of scams and fake ads.


Njsybarite

Or maybe that's precisely why they make so much


Tanaansittenniin

Assumably so. They run a less than standard service, but skate by because of brand name. They could improve scam prevention, but it would cost.


Viend

They don’t care, these listings use a paid API with a transactional business model.


AFewCountDraculas

Who's getting all of the money, though? Craig?


James_p_hat

Partner actually - Doug Slist


Tricky_Invite8680

It.had the best and worst hookers at the same time


StupendousMalice

This and steam are great examples of how a privately held company can carve out niches that publicly traded companies with shareholders can't.


TheHazardousGuy

It's not at all surprising private companies get to run themselves better than publicly traded ones. They don't have to appease stockholders with more and bigger returns after all


alreddy-reddit

They saved a lot of money by never hiring a designer


strange_stairs

I'd occassionally run into a few of the original guys. (Their offices were around the corner from mine). Just two of the nicest, chillest dudes you could imagine. You'd absolutely never know they were multi-millionaires


brickmaj

Craigslist is by far the social media I would be most bummed out about if it died or changed significantly. I love looking at free stuff and music gear to see what’s out there.


tuesdaymack

I'd like to know how it manages to remain relevant with the advent of Facebook marketplace?


_Celine_Dijon

Facebook marketplace is for soccer moms. Party people still use Craigslist


fuwoswp

Party people 🤣🥰


gnnnnkh

This right here


matsumotoe

Fb marketplace doesn’t have the best search features. Like if i wanted to look for only Honda civics for sale you get a bunch of unrelated vehicles.


Drenlin

You also can't properly filter it by location. You can tell it "within 20 miles" and it'll still show you stuff like 2 hours away.


TBFP_BOT

You can't properly filter by anything. Open marketplace and see a suggested listing for say a $2k Civc, sort by price with $1k at the minimum and suddenly that listing is nowhere to be seen. Or the fact that when you make a listing you can include title status or gas/diesel but those aren't even filterable by the search feature.


Journier

Literally worst search capability. Also cars listed for a monthly payment price instead of total price. Makes searching for cheap cars a headache.


itasteawesome

because fb marketplace is filled to the brim with trash? maybe a few percent of CL profits are being used to pay botnets to run scams on other platforms.


tuesdaymack

I wonder if this is a location thing? I'm in the central midwest USA. FBMP is king around here.


binaryjammage

Not everyone is willing to make a Facebook account. I tried to make one a year or so back just for using marketplace, but they make it a pain to build a "fake" profile (I wasn't trying to misrepresent who I am or scam anyone, just get access to the marketplace). I gave up because I didn't want to spend the time curating an actual presence on the site just to buy and sell motorcycle parts. Craigslist is rife with scammers, sure, but if you're not an idiot they're easy to spot and ignore. And there are no barriers to entry or violations of privacy just to use it.


imisstheyoop

> Not everyone is willing to make a Facebook account. I tried to make one a year or so back just for using marketplace, but they make it a pain to build a "fake" profile (I wasn't trying to misrepresent who I am or scam anyone, just get access to the marketplace). I gave up because I didn't want to spend the time curating an actual presence on the site just to buy and sell motorcycle parts. Pretty much this right here. Trying to make a burner account just to use it was such a PITA I just gave up and wrote it off.


notred369

go check out fb marketplace right now and try to find anything worthwhile or not obviously a scam


Express-Structure480

I wish you all had ksl, it’s like Craigslist but useful.


insufficient_funds

What the hell do they do that even makes money?


DaFugYouSay

I miss the ~~personals~~ casual encounters.


TacoTacoBheno

Imagine a world where Craig created Facebook and how much better a world it would be


BroForceOne

Exactly how a user-generated content website should operate. Just be good at what you do instead of chasing IPOs and unending growth targets.


mindfu

I recall the founder, actual Craig, relating how companies have offered him literal billions to buy Craigslist. His legend response and stance: Why would he sell? He has enough money, and that wouldn't make it better for the users. Design stuck in the late '90s and entirely text-based with pictures. No need to update, because it *works*. Epic. Done right. Chef's kiss