Craigslist is such a disaster that it's hard for me to accept that it's responsible for shutting down so many newspapers. But, it replaced classified ads, and without that positive cash flow newspapers all had to make cuts. I use Craigslist to sell things I don't want but would feel bad dumping in the trash since I, 1. Paid a lot for it, and 2. Don't want good things to go to waste. So I sell my stuff -- at way below its value using the logic that it's such a great deal a buyer will take it off my hands quickly and with the minimal amount of hassle. It never works. I end up getting 20 emails from prospective buyers looking at a dining room table with four chairs for $10. How tall is it? Can you take high-res photos of all the scratches and fax them to me? Can you drive it to Boston so I can look at it? I don't think these things used to happen when people ran classified ads. For one, buyers couldn't send you mindless emails and text messages while they sat at work with nothing to do all day. They had to know how to operate a phone. And, they had to be literate since the ads didn't have pictures. They're small things, but it's these two barriers to buying that made classifieds so much better than Craigslist.
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