I went to Craigslist in my local area for the first time in awhile. I used to like “best of” Craigslist because some of them were great, there still are some, but its just not the same. A community I used to visit had about half the number of posts as I remember, and of jobs and things for sale, I would say roughly half the posts are just bottom feeding companies autoposting one post a day.

Is Craigslist going to be another web 1.0 app that just dies off? Is it the same in your area?

Craig himself is long since retired from doing stuff and they never seemed to be interested in working with other apps because most of them just scrape and don’t add value to CL, but the Fediverse can, if there was a filter for the spam. What do you think?

#craigslist #fediverse #federation

  • datavoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Like others here, facebook took over the market …market in my area as well.

    However, I think we can all agree Craigslist really died the second they removed the casual encounters section.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 months ago

      You mean the “totally not prostitution, for real you guys, I mean it, don’t arrest me” section? Because that’s why all the hookup and dating sections vanished. It was even in the news at the time.

      • datavoid@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        The one time I went on that site for that reason was in the early 2010s, pre-tinder. The other person was real, but substantially less female than advertised. At least they were polite when I told them I wasn’t interested?

  • atmur@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Craigslist in my area is at least 90% spam, FB Marketplace is also not super active. OfferUp is pretty popular though.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Fighting off bots and scrapers has become a huge problem for every site on the internet.

    It’s not surprising that a site that has kept a web 1.0 ethos and style hasn’t updated the back-end to more appropriately deal with these types of attacks.

    Further, craigslist functioned on not needing a ton of moderators for the whole shebang. Keeping it simple allowed costs to be low.

    The bot armies have changed that calculus, now you need a ton of well-paid moderators to make it functional, and I would suspect a site like Craigslist simply doesn’t pull enough income to be able to justify those sort of costs.

    So instead, it will wither and rot on the vine.

  • CRUMBGRABBER@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Craigslist was one of the examples of the potential of the early internet, where we could have nice things because all the users valued it. Its falling victim to enshittification even with no ads and no connection to big tech.

  • makeasnek@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    It would be nice to have a decentralized or federated buy/sell platform that replaces craigslist. Facebook marketplace has absolutely eaten craigslist for lunch, and I hate that I have to use it to sell stuff, but there are few viable alternatives for local sales.

    eBay is great until you want to sell a $300 iPhone and don’t want to mess with buyer return fraud which is rampant on that platform (and most custodial payment services like PayPal). I don’t sell anything on eBay for over >$100, got burned too many times.

  • arefx@lemmy.ml
    0·
    3 months ago

    In my experience yes. The Facebook marketplace killed it. Which sucks because I refuse to use facebook.

  • JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee
    0·
    3 months ago

    Still sell and give away things all the time on Craigslist. Bought a cool sleek table for my patio. People use NextDoor too.

  • dirtySourdough@lemmy.world
    0·
    3 months ago

    Oddly enough I’ve had the most success selling things on craigslist in the past few years. When I list things on OfferUp I get some messages but everyone is super flaky. People are still flaky on craigslist but I almost always end up closing the sale there instead of OfferUp

  • krolden@lemmy.ml
    0·
    3 months ago

    Facebool marketplace did a number on Craigslist. Also you need to pay five dollars to post a car ad now which sucks.

  • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
    0·
    3 months ago

    Everyone here uses Kijiji or Facebook Markeplace. Craigslist isn’t on anyone’s radar because it has a reputation for being sketchy.

  • Roopappy@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I still like it. But it does have two problems:

    1. Post spam. There is no enforcement of the posting rules, and nobody reacts if they are reported. For example, I’m looking for a Volvo, and people post a Dodge but put every car manufacturer name in the listing so they show up in every search.

    2. Scam fucking overload. Every time I post anything for sale, the scam traffic is overwhelming. I listed a car and got like 12 similar scam responses. Most appeared to be chat bots with no human behind it. Some surprised me by responding to my sarcastic replies.

    But I still look there. The site works for the most part, especially if you use the search modifiers. And selling stuff works too. Sometimes you get murdered, but it’s rare.

  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    I posted several large wood working machines for sale there in the past year and every one was bought within 24 hours.