this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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I went to Craigslist in my local area for the first time in awhile. I used to like β€œbest 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

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[–] jet@hackertalks.com 100 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Facebook marketplace is killing it for classifieds

[–] AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 53 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wish this wasn't the case. There's no way I'll ever create a FB account even for classifieds alone.

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[–] Steve@startrek.website 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)
[–] jet@hackertalks.com 24 points 5 months ago (6 children)
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Because the Zuck was like

right, so we’ve got this huge captive audience. If we copy Craigslist and add like 1% more functionality, we can steal that whole market, and also have a decent shot at taking a bunch of the eBay (et al) market share too

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[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 53 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not where I'm at. Less young people have Facebook so will use other services like Craigslist. Yard sales are also popular.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 14 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Really? I thought facebook martketplace was the big one.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 54 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Young people don't use Facebook because it's full of old people just like what happened to MySpace and young people moving to Facebook because it was... full of old people.

TikTok went from being a Gen Z hangout to being filled with millennials who wanted to stay hip and young, and now young people are bailing on TikTok, too.

It always goes: Youth find cool space. Older youth want to stay hip and young and so populate youth space. Older youth quickly age up, soon making it a non-youth space. Younger youth leave to find a new cool space for youth. Some kind of Samsara.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

i think millenials are one of the main demographics along with genz since the beginning no?

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah maybe, but we're 40 now.

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[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 5 months ago

Facebook is mostly scamers where I am. So I stopped using it.

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 35 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.ml 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

At what point did you get the reveal? Did you have to meet in person first?

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We meet in person, thankfully in a very public place.

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[–] Roopappy@lemmy.ml 31 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] HurlingDurling@lemmy.world 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes you get murdered, but it's rare.

Yeah, I hate when that happens to me, its so inconvenient

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I don't believe you, because you can only get murdered once, and after that you wouldn't be able to post comments on the internet.

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[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago (1 children)

At least as far as apartment listings in California go, in my experience most of them are scams and phishing schemes. So yeah, 5-10 years ago most were legit postings, now it’s flipped.

[–] classic@fedia.io 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Where are real listings found, instead?

[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Good question, I wish I knew. The closest I’ve found is sometimes Zillow, but it’s pretty different, not really comparable.

I’m not on Facebook, but from what I hear they’ve got the monopoly on this kind of thing now.

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[–] otherbarry@lemmy.zip 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

In the northeast U.S. Zillow and their related sites (they own a few real estate sales/rentals sites) is where the majority of rental listings show up. Though keep in mind those are also markets with tons of real estate brokers doing the listings & whatnot. Plenty of owner/landlords also use those sites but I'm not too sure if it's the same in other parts of the U.S.

Those Zillow sites also have room / roommate search listings but a lot of people tend to join local Facebook groups for that or maybe use apps for that.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 27 points 5 months ago

Marketplace killed it. Thanks zucc

[–] Crumbgrabber@lemm.ee 23 points 5 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The story of how we went from couchsurfing.com to airbnb.com

Couchsurfing became a for-profit company in 2011, after having been a volunteer-outfit since 1999.

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[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago

TIL: Craigslist still existed.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Nah I like to go through Craigslist. I live in the Orange County area and lots of people use it.

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

I saw the same when I lived in OC. It's pretty lively up here in Seattle too.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 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.

[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago

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

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 14 points 5 months ago

Craigslist died in my area the minute Marketplace opened up. It's a shame too because Marketplace is hot garbage for browsing cars. You can select what color you want but not engine or drivetrain for example.

[–] Snowpix@lemmy.ca 12 points 5 months ago

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

[–] arefx@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 months ago

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

[–] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 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.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 10 points 5 months ago

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

[–] Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago

Long since dead here. Nothing but scams and data harvesting.

[–] Silverseren@fedia.io 9 points 5 months ago

Craigslist has been spam for quite a while at this point. Even for me in my thirties, I don't know anyone who has used it legitimately for at least a decade.

[–] dirtySourdough@lemmy.world 9 points 5 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

[–] QualifiedKitten@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

I still use Craigslist, but it does seem like fewer other people do. I've never really cared to get top dollar for whatever I list, I mostly just want to avoid tossing it in the garbage or hauling it to a donation drop off, and it's worked well for that. I'm currently browsing for a few items, and it does feel cluttered with dealers, even when supposedly limiting it for sale by owner only.

I tried Offer Up once a few years ago, and for some reason, it didn't notify me of any responses, so by the time I thought to check it again, I had already sold the item through CL. I refuse to use any Meta products, so FB Marketplace effectively doesn't exist to me.

[–] otherbarry@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 months ago

Seems mostly dead for apt rentals / roommate wanted type stuff. I used to use it years ago but nowadays it's mostly scam posts and no one I know would use Craigslist for finding roommates / looking for rooms. The site itself has a reputation for having shady posters so people tend to avoid it.

[–] atmur@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

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

[–] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 5 months ago

I was going to post something to CL a month or two ago, but was shunned away by new & intrusive PII collection... seemed offensive and discordant with the original spirit of CL, and I ended up "nope'n out" instead. RIP another internet era/icon.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 6 points 5 months ago

As weird as it sounds, Facebook Marketplace is actually really good last I checked for a lot of the buying and selling aspect that Craigslist used to be good for

I think it still exists within a happy medium wherein the site owners are paying enough attention that most of the blatant scammers can get chased away, but not so much attention that they start trying to make money off it and ruin it

[–] JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee 6 points 5 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.

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