
Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others don't owe us anything. - thebdmethod
http://monkeymace.com/post/25740159275/craigslist-linkedin-netflix-and-others-dont-owe-us-anyth
======
citricsquid
I think the reason people here feel this way is because the general consensus
among HN users is that the best product wins and that's all that matters. If a
company has a monopoly on data and refuses to provide an API they're saying
that they don't want to compete on the quality of their product (craigslist
for example) they want to keep their position without the benefits to the
users.

Padmapper made craigslist apartment searches much better, instead of making
their own apartment searches better craigslist shut Padmapper's access to
craigslist data down. It shows that they value their own business more than
they value the experience of their users, which to a lot of people here isn't
exactly "good".

Companies are free to do with their data whatever they want and they're free
to restrict access to it however they like, sure, but it's still lame when a
company does it because they don't want to improve their product and don't
like competition.

~~~
heliodor
Actually, Craigslist values us, the users, more than most companies. You know
how? By leaving so much money on the table that you can't help but love them!
Craigslist is a breath of fresh air in a world where everything is optimized
as much as possible to part us from our money!

~~~
jacoblyles
I don't see how Craigslist refusing to better themselves justifies the
millions of hours wasted by their customers using their shitty UI. What a
strange sense of justice.

If you value users, don't hurt yourself to show it. Rather, don't shut off
sites that save them hours of their limited and precious lifetime.

~~~
bigiain
It's pretty easy to assert that Craigslist is somehow disrespecting their
users - perhaps by having poor UI - but it's harder to prove that assertion by
setting up a competing service with your idea of a "better UI" for the users.

It seems abundantly clear to me that the assertion that "A competitor to
Craigslist who got $x right would easily get all Craigslist's users", for any
of the usually mentioned values of $x [web design, UI, UX, customer service,
search, API, other services using their API, …] - is nothing more than a head-
in-the-sand misapprehension on the part of startup/web design/UI people.
Craigslist _users_ have not "jumped ship" en-mass to any technically or
graphically "better" alternative - and it's hardly from lack of trying by
people who're _sure_ they will.

I think sometimes we need to get out of the HN/startup/bay-area echo chamber -
I'm pretty sure Newmarket and his crew have a much different view of what
their user base wants than any assumptions made by the HN zeitgeist…

~~~
jacoblyles
Do you understand the concept of "monopoly power"? It sounds like you do not.

I, personally, save several hours every time I look for an apartment by using
padmapper over Craigslist. Aggregated, that's human _lifetimes_ of time saved
every year by padmapper.

UI isn't about round corners and fancy color schemes. It's about using
computers to automate repetitive behaviors. Newmark's defenders tell me what I
really want is to waste my limited lifetime clicking manually through entries
on his shitty site. But no, I really don't.

Fuck Craigslist. Seriously.

~~~
res0nat0r
> I, personally, save several hours every time I look for an apartment by
> using padmapper over Craigslist.

> Fuck Craigslist. Seriously.

It's a bit disingenuous to say fuck Craigslist when the data you are using
above...comes from Craigslist. Shouldn't you have switched to Zillow or
another service by now if you hate Craigslist so much?

------
crazygringo
No.

I might be inclined to agree, if it weren't for network effects.

Once a company reaches a certain size and market share, like Craigslist,
would-be competitors are at a competitive disadvantage. Lots of people have
created objectively better sites than Craigslist, but they fail because of
network lock-in. Normal capitalistic competition is failing.

This is the same thing that happened with railways, utilities, and other
natural monopolies. In these cases, it is necessary and proper for the
government to step in and regulate access and interoperability.

Sites like Craigslist and LinkedIn have become the new natural monopolies. And
demanding that they open up their data is the natural, and right, action to
bring back natural market competition that benefits consumers and the world at
large.

~~~
asanwal
Are you suggesting legislation that "levels the playing field"? I'd much
rather have this settled by entrepreneurs fighting on the basis of their ideas
than some legislator without a clue. No company dominates forever esp in
technology.

Craigslist disrupted a huge classified industry without any legislator saying
that papers had to "open" up their data. Markets work over time.

~~~
crazygringo
But the point is, entrepreneurs are currently fighting on the basis of their
ideas, and _failing_ , even though their ideas are _better_ than Craigslist,
because Craigslist is winning merely because of network lock-in, not because
of innovation.

Craigslist disrupted the classifieds industry because it had first-mover
advantage in a new medium, the Internet. It now abuses that advantage in order
to not innovate or even compete.

The market is _not_ working over time -- proof is how everyone complains about
how crappy Craigslist is.

But a solution, for example, could be something like: legislators could force
companies with over, say, 25% market share, that are mainly based on user-
generated content, to not be able to sue other companies if those companies
re-display information originally input by users, that is publicly visible on
the site.

This wouldn't force Craigslist to alter its behavior one bit. But it would
allow entrepreneurs to actually fight once again on the basis of their ideas,
as opposed to whoever had first-mover advantage and subsequent network lock-
in.

~~~
ericingram
I think this is fuzzy logic, to say the market is not working over time
because some people you are close to complain about craigslist. You are
ignoring a huge number of people and the vast majority of the market's
information (even analysts can't pin all the dynamic in a market).

An idea can't "beat" Craigslist. It's the whole of a product and team mixed up
with constantly shifting market dynamics and human preferences.

It's just way more complicated, and legislation shouldn't even come into the
conversation here unless the company is provably violating another's civil or
property rights. Are they?

~~~
CamperBob2
_An idea can't "beat" Craigslist. It's the whole of a product and team mixed
up with constantly shifting market dynamics and human preferences_

Here's an idea that can beat Craigslist: put up billboards all over town,
offering $500 per ad to property managers and individual landlords in return
for giving your site a 4-week exclusive on those ads.

That's the only way people will stop putting ads on Craigslist first, which in
turn will be the only reason people will stop looking there first.

Network effects as powerful as Craigslist's can't be fought with a better
product alone, as you point out. (See eBay for another example.) You either
have to spend some money to _take_ their market from them, or you have to be
there when they fuck up.

And whatever else you can say about Craigslist, they are very, very good at
not fucking up.

~~~
ericingram
I agree with that. Their network effects make new entry more difficult. That
is a perfectly valid mechanism of a free market, as long as it's based on free
exchange (no force).

------
ianb
In the marketplace consumer expectations can get higher, a sense of
entitlement develops, and that entitlement can be the valid effect of genuine
progress. Not because the providers _have_ to satisfy our sense of
entitlement, but because they _do_ , because that's what it takes to compete
until at some point that's what's expected just to play the game. Food
providers at some point stopped competing on food safety because everyone
demanded everything be safe. We started expecting cars to be very reliable,
and if someone makes an unreliable car then fuck caveat emptor, it's not going
to become a matter of whether some consumers are willing to make that
compromise and some are not – instead your brand becomes shit and you have to
beg people to come back, if you can at all. Right now we don't have that
expectation about APIs; but some people want us to, we are moving that
direction, and _maybe_ we will get there. Or maybe we'll get somewhere else;
progress however ensures that we will get _somewhere_ , that consumers will
find something new about which to feel entitled.

And yeah, these companies don't "owe" us anything, but consumers (even the
subset of developer-consumers) can still get pissed off at them and say shit
and that's the fucking market. And maybe it won't mean anything, maybe it'll
all fade away... and maybe it won't. That's the risk those brands are taking.
It's our market-based prerogative to bitch about whatever the hell we want to
bitch about, using whatever hyperbole we want, with any sense of entitlement
that we've acquired.

If someone starts sending mail bombs to these companies because they aren't
tending their APIs as we'd like, then that's coercion. But there's no coercion
here, this is just people offering their opinions. So quit yer whining about
our whining, the internet has entitled us to whine as much as we fucking want
to, and has offered market-based ways to lift or bury that whining.

------
monkeymace
It is frustrating that due to network effects, for-profit companies, gain a
near monopoly on important data types. YouTube owns video, Craigslist owns
classifieds, Netflix owns video viewing, etc.

It would be great if there was regulation over certain types of data that
would require companies to post back to a central database if they take
certain kinds of information. It would be great if there was a device that
could help level the playing field.

The point of my post was to highlight that complaining, or being shocked by
these companies behavoir is sort of missing the point.

How can we unify and provide access to what we feel to be 'universal' data
types?

~~~
asanwal
This is a slippery slope. Who defines these universal data types? And if they
only are "defined" when someone gets big and powerful, doesn't that reduce the
incentive to innovate and build big businesses?

The idea of mandating any such rule is not the solution. It's antithetical to
how markets should work.

There's been no company that's managed to dominate forever. LinkedIn, CL,
Netflix will be no different. Someone or ones will attack them (perhaps
orthogonally) and ultimately they will lose their dominance. That's what
happens to incumbents. The market takes care of them. Note: this disruption
may or may not be quick.

~~~
sirclueless
> That's what happens to incumbents. The market takes care of them.

I'm not so sure. Communication tools are fundamentally different than most
other products, because their primary value is the number of other people
reachable through the service. This isn't true of most other industries, where
you can drive a Toyota and I can drive a Ford and everyone is happy.

When your a whole market is based on the ability to interact with other people
in some way, and a single company can flip interoperability on and off like a
light switch, it has the potential to be a dangerous monopoly. The government
stepped in and broke up Ma Bell because of this.

~~~
asanwal
I don't buy it. In the case of CL or the other companies mentioned (Netflix
and LinkedIn), calling any of them communication tools is not really close to
an apt description/characterization.

If we characterize them as communication tools, we are using a pretty loose
definition. Moreover, inviting regulators (via their involvement in some sort
of monopoly breakdown) into the proverbial henhouse is a nice mix of anti-free
enterprise, anti-entrepreneurship and misguided/naive.

------
zacharypinter
Let's play around a bit with this mentality:

Google: man up and build your own database of everything. Stop indexing our
data when we already offer our own search mechanism.

I get that everybody wants to build ajax web apps and ios apps and android
apps and so on, but what's the point of the internet except for being the
default client-server protocol if we can't create mashups? The whole point of
the internet is that data is public and linkable and interconnected. If
companies don't want to allow scraping and they don't provide an API for their
non-user-specific data then they're defeating the whole point of the internet.

~~~
dedward
There are tons of reasons why Craigslist, as a business, may have taken this
road, from a simple "less hassle for us" down the road to "we're building our
own stuff" to. who knows. They're a private business - they can do what they
want - we don't get to demand insight.

The vast majority of their users don't give a hoot about whether or not other
parties have a way to wrap up craigslist data and do stuff with it.

The whole point of the Internet is that it's a collecation of independently
run networks that can communicate. The point of the WWW is to serve
hyeprlinked pages to people. There IS NO POINT to the internet - it just
happened, and here we are.

~~~
zem
we absolutely get to demand insight. whether they provide it or not is up to
them, but demands are free.

------
m0th87
And nobody owes Craigslist, LinkedIn, or Netflix anything either. They can act
as shitty as they want, but nobody should be surprised when it gives them bad
press.

~~~
saumil07
Most succinct and best comment - the original post is a tempest in a teapot.
Craigslist is free to optimize their lock-in on their marketplace and web-
savvy users are free to bitch about the effects thereof (I did on Twitter
twice over), most likely to little effect in the short to medium term. Maybe
enough complaints and CL will get its act together. Maybe it won't. But that's
fine! Let's continue speaking out against CL's uncool behavior and hope for
the best.

------
davesims
Saying that a company has every right to execute whatever policy they deem
necessary to defend their bottom-line interests is not the same as saying that
the community they do business in cannot call them out when those same
policies are executed in an underhanded or deceptive way.

Sure, they don't owe third-parties anything, and personally I think it's folly
to base all or even a significant portion of your business on data or
functionality that you don't control.

But that doesn't mean that the community corporations do business in must
always just shut up about it when, for instance, one company pretends to
support a third-party's efforts for two months, just long enough to get a good
hard look at their user experience, financial standing and business model, and
then summarily shut them down without recourse.

"It's just business" is fine, but it's not a get-out-of-shame-free card. Just
as third-parties can't complain when an API is yanked out from under them like
Lucy with a football, so corporations shouldn't get butt-hurt when the
community they work with looks at them and says, "the way you did that really
stinks."

------
nestlequ1k
Hell yeah they owe us. Their services would not exist without our user data
(netflix excluded).

Internet is still relatively young, but I think eventually we're going to have
to have laws that regulate how companies that collect user details allow
access to 3rd parties.

Monopolies are illegal for a reason. Companies who build infrastructure have
to manage it fairly.

~~~
jasonlotito
> Hell yeah they owe us.

And for that data, they provide you with services. That doesn't mean they
should be required to hand that data out to any service that requests it?

I mean, are you really asking that companies like LinkedIn allow free access
to it's api's and user data to any 3rd party that requests it?

> Monopolies are illegal for a reason.

Well, no. Monopolies just require additional oversight. Microsoft, for
example, didn't get in trouble for being a monopoly, it got in trouble for
unfair business practices as a monopoly. More importantly, a monopoly doesn't
exist with any of the companies presented in this article.

Really though, your comment fits with the picture at the top of the article.

~~~
waterlesscloud
"That doesn't mean they should be required to hand that data out to any
service that requests it?"

It does, however, mean that it's up for negotiation, if the consumers want it
to be.

~~~
jasonlotito
Not sure what you are trying to say here. Are you suggesting that if the
members want their data free, they can "negotiate" for allowing 3rd parties to
access it? That goes without saying.

So, either you are saying something else, or just stating the status quo.

------
A1kmm
We don't owe them anything either, and yet computer crimes laws make it
illegal to circumvent any technical measures they put in place to stop
competitors from getting information they make public on the site.

I think less people would be concerned about the issue if it was just
Craigslist putting up technical measures (e.g. blocking API access) to
competitors, but competitors were free to rent VPSes or pay people for use of
their IP address to access the data for scraping. If there was no law against
scraping information from websites that is available to arbitrary members of
the public (provided that you comply with copyright laws post-scraping), then
there would be no issue.

So the real issue is not that Craigslist owes anyone anything, but rather,
that the government is enforcing laws on their behalf to entrench the network
effects of existing businesses against new entrants to the market.

------
kika
Correct. But, IMHO, they (Craigslists of the world) owe us, consumers. We're
their eyeballs, customers, users, we bring them food, directly or indirectly.
Well, at least for myself this is always the case, to greater or lesser
extent: when I do something for a user, and user pays me, I feel somewhat
obliged. If he pays me $5/mo, it doesn't mean that our contract is renewed
from scratch every month. I feel obliged to do something that would entitle me
to issue an invoice next month. It doesn't mean that I will bend over
backwards for every user (it just doesn't scale) but nevertheless.

I mean that PodMapper was a service for Craigslist's users, first and
foremost. And banning PodMapper means that Craigslist doesn't give a shit
about us, its users. Do you really believe that PodMapper did any damage to
Craigslist?

~~~
latch
You say that as if Craigslist doesn't provide any value to consumers as-is.
How much do they owe you? Maybe they should pay you to use their website?
Maybe they should buy the item you are interested in for you?

You seriously think Craigslist doesn't give a shit about users? Think about
what you are saying. Think about the world before Craigslist. It's a free
service that even my mother uses. This is the _exact_ sense of entitlement
that the OP is talking about.

~~~
kika
I didn't do a qualified research (I would have told that otherwise) so I can
tell for myself. I personally don't use CL exactly because of that - I look at
the website and understand that nobody gives a fuck about me here. Not because
it doesn't use CSS3, but because it's barely usable. I seriously used CL twice
- once I've rented a condo through it (using early PadMapper) and bought a
pair of speakers from some local fella. I tried to sell some home furniture
and run away in awe. The amount of scam was unsurmountable.

So for me personally PadMapper provided 50% of the total CL positive
experience.

I've used ebay over 100 times. Ebay is ripe for disruption, imho, but it's
still okay.

You sound very nervous.

~~~
latch
I'm not nervous. I'm _upset_. For two reasons.

First and foremost because you make wild assumptions and accusations. They
don't give a shit about users? Have you talked to the Craig? What about other
employees? You are throwing a company under the bus because you don't like its
design and don't like them controller their API. I hate their decision with
respect to PadMapper, but I reserve _doesn't give a shit about users_ for
Monsento, tobacco and alcohol companies. You aren't their only user, _you_
might not feel like they don't give a shit about _you_ , but any grander
statement is just big meaningless talk.

Secondly, as I originally stated, because you think Craigslist owes you
something. They don't. Deal with it.

~~~
kika
Wow, just wow. I was born in the USSR and I feel "comfortably" at home now.

> you might not feel like they don't give a shit about you

May I, nevertheless? Thanks in advance!

What's the difference between CL and Monsanto (Philip-Morris) in this context?
All these companies sell something which is legal and have a demand. Users pay
for the goods (seeds, listings, cigarettes). Users appear to be happy. Users
want to get some extra value out of the goods/services (put the PadMapper on
top of CL, breed their own seeds from Monsanto modified plants, dunno about
cigs, though :-)). Oops, lawyers abound! Now Monsanto owes something to
farmers, but CL doesn't owe anyone anything. Hmmm. You're throwing Monsanto
under the bus because you side with farmers. That's okay. But who told you
that you're absolutely right?

I can easily deal with CL not owing me anything - I don't do anything on CL.

Please, calm down.

------
zobzu
But wouldn't it be nice?

Wouldn't we all better off as a whole if technology wasn't solely based on
profit only?

I think that's the real question, and what started the whole "API" "open XXX",
not "OMG I WANT IT /CRY/CRY" that the image suggests. Remember that most devs
nowadays participate in open source projects and start to have different
ethics than they used to have (which was, money > everything, and justifies
all actions)

~~~
romanows
Honest question, what devs are you thinking of that put profit above
everything else? Newcomers during the dot-com bubble?

~~~
zobzu
Well, I did point out that devs have better ethics than they used to have.
It's the companies in general that drive them away from that (willingly,
unwillingly, or even without knowing).

Or the dev-became-CEO, too, I guess. Not all of them of course.

I just wish it would keep on being "more open" for these reasons, and it would
be sad to go back to an "all proprietary, closed, etc" world.

------
wandernotlost
All the mentioned companies form at least part of their business on data
collected from their users. Not products or sevices formed of raw material.
Even Netflix depends on its users' data heavily in order to run its
recommendation system. So to expect that they allow the public, in the form of
other companies providing other services based on said data, is not so
unreasonable at all.

As a provider of data from which these companies make their profits, I believe
it is entirely reasonable to demand that they make those data accessible to
other services I'd like to use. Sadly the trend of the Internet has been away
from open systems and toward siloed, proprietary data stores.

~~~
jasonlotito
You make the mistake of assuming that you gave them your data and got nothing
in return. You did.

What you're upset about is that you've already given them your data, and now
you want more for it. You've upped your price after handing over the product,
and them having delivered the product.

~~~
wandernotlost
Please point to the part of my comment where I said I got nothing in return.
I'm not sure what makes you think that customers can't demand things of those
they do business with. There's always a potential new competitor, and I can
always choose to take my business elsewhere. Also, who's saying I've upped my
price? This all started because of narrowing of restrictions on APIs, not
people suddenly demanding APIs where none existed.

~~~
jasonlotito
> Please point to the part of my comment where I said I got nothing in return.

It was your self-entitled attitude that reeked from your comment. If I was
wrong with that, sorry.

In that case, your demanding they give you something for nothing.

> I'm not sure what makes you think that customers can't demand things of
> those they do business with.

Demanding things while offering nothing in return doesn't help. Also, "Please
point to the part of my comment where I said customers can't demand things."

> Also, who's saying I've upped my price?

You have. You're asking for control over their API's.

Seriously, people like you think these companies have your data. They don't.
You still have your data. You've shared it with them. It's theirs now. If you
really cared about controlling your data, you'd have worried about this when
you first signed up.

You're just acting the part of a self-entitled egotistical internet drama-
queen "fighting the big guy oppressing the little guy", and frankly, that
song-and-dance get's old quick.

------
atomical
I'm glad someone said it. It's foolish to develop a product exclusively with
another company's API. But maybe Pealk was looking to get acquired all along?
In that case this whole debacle has a valuable lesson in it: Don't build a
feature, build a product.

------
niketdesai
There was definitely some entitlement among the community, but I don't think
that should silence the call for better services (and API enforcement) from
these providers (or, hopefully alternatives all together).

If there is API access it should be enforced with more care or not made
available at all. Personally, I was skeptical that PadMapper would go anywhere
(expecting CL to kill the scraping early on). Much to my surprise it stuck
around and furthermore was really useful. I'm not mad that it is gone: I read
the TOS from CL - it's totally their right to do that. It just hurts end users
which is the problem.

And sure, I do believe it's dangerous (and can be misleading to users [like
when your data access gets pulled]) to build a product entirely on a platform,
but it's almost unavoidable. (That's why you are the platform). Companies like
PadMapper are going to try to improve where you have left off. (They probably
didn't even register on CL's logs until they queried a lot which might explain
the delayed C&D).

Let our entitlement / disappointment be a message to these companies on how to
improve their services (ideally they could improve in a way that makes them
more money). Or hopefully fuel for others to build competing products.

------
madrona
Hear, hear. With all the talk of "pivoting" and whatnot on HN, I'm really
surprised at how many people are so utterly hostile to businesses changing
course at Internet speed. Have your cake and eat it too, eh?

------
dredmorbius
By the same coin, we owe Craigslist, LinkedIn, Netflix, and others nothing.

That's a two-way street.

As crazygringo pointed out, a very large part of the value of these firms
comes not from their technology but simply from their market position,
dominating a specific niche, and generating network effects as a consequence
of size.

In a market in which there's a tendency toward monopoly: utility services,
telecommunications, desktop/personal software, business office software,
business systems software, advertising networks, publishing, broadcasting, pop
music/entertainment, agricultural middleman, major chip foundries,
pharmaceuticals, a large part of the value accruing to the firm/organization
is a consequence of the interest / business which society as a whole has
invested in the monopoly.

At the same time, twin abuses of monopoly pricing (which accrues a greater
marginal profit to the monopolist) or anti-competitive actions (driving out
competition by way of locally (time or region) undercutting prices,
contractually discouraging or prohibiting customers from doing business with
competitors) exacts an additional cost on society as a whole.

I've long been a fan of Craigslist. I think that their business exemplifies
some of the best of how to conduct an online business (leverage technology
massively, but also rely on community goodwill to conduct many business
operations, including removing of bad/fraudulent listings). While I'm not a
particular critic of CL's page format -- they've held to the KISS principle in
the extreme -- it's become increasingly clear that for many types of listings,
there are some very evident improvements which could be made.

My feeling is that CL are squandering an opportunity in their dealings with
Padmapper. The Padmapper interface, for apartment and real-estate listings, is
vastly superior to CL's existing listing format. While there is a business
risk to CL in allowing another party to utilize its comprehensive listings
(for which CL would reasonably be able to assert compilation copyrights,
answering some here), I really believe it would be to CL's benefit to find _a
reasonable business relationship_ under which it could utilized Padmapper's
interface. Whether that's a data exchange agreement, a purchase or leasing of
the technology, or simply a reinvention of it, I don't particularly care (I
also owe Padmapper nothing in particular).

And if that's not the case, then, well, CL show a case of a market which, if a
feasible business case can be made, is ripe for disruption.

------
perlpimp
I've been mulling over few solutions for craigslist problem and there are few
technical solutions to flaunt craiglist's service. I am building service along
similar lines of what padmapper did and already writing up those for our
service.

Moral is if you quit, you are a quitter. If you are useful to people find some
other solution implement it asap and keep rolling. I am not yet living in the
sates but if I truly believe that my service is useful to people I'd just go
and try to do it differently and move on with that. Never give up, especially
if you are doing something that is good. If you're causing rucks and are being
useful maybe that might be an opportunity of a lifetime...

my 2c

------
bherms
Interesting perspective that I'm inclined to agree with. It seems that large
companies with vast amounts of data or users are generally expected to give
developers a way to interact, but the reality is that they have the ability
and right to control access to said resources however they feel benefits their
business best (or even reduces the amount of shit they need to monitor). I've
always agreed with Calacanis that startups should not stake their business
model on the good nature of a larger service (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
etc). It seems to me that if Ayn Rand were still around, she'd be writing
tomes on the new generation of "data looters" - those who feel entitled to the
hard earned data of the large faceless corporations that exist within our tech
industry. "Sacrifice your data and business to us poor, helpless developers
who are just looking for our next meal. It's for the good of the industry!,"
they cried.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Rand would say that both parties in a transaction have the right to negotiate
the terms of said transaction.

~~~
angryasian
both parties would be craigslist and its users in this case. Which craigslist
does allow users to post their information where ever they want.

~~~
waterlesscloud
The users are also within their rights to request that Craigslist share that
information with third parties via an api, or by scraping for that matter.

The point is that Craigslist is not the only side in the transaction and
should not be presumed to be able to set the terms on their own.

~~~
angryasian
when you submit your information to craigslist you agree to their tos. If you
don't accept you don't have to submit your information to them. Once the
information is in their database theres now two sets of data. Yours that
exists on your hdd or your head and craigslist copy of the data that you
submitted to them. You are free to do what you want with your copy of the
data, submit it to other sites, allow other people to somehow scrape it... but
craigslist copy of your data, they can now do what they want with it.

------
gulfie
Some pathology of codependency is based on people doing for someone else what
that someone else should do for themselves.

This is also how one destroys markets. Say for example dumping cheap corn on
markets to destroy the livelihood of local famers, then when they are gone
jacking up the prices far above what would have been possible when the local
farmers were still operating. This and other monopolistic practices are
illegal and generally accepted to be morally reprehensible in most of the
world.

There is a implicit deal that is being struck between suppliers and consumers.
That what we get today we can get tomorrow. TQM style supply contracts often
call this out explicitly building long term positive relationships between
supplier and consumer. Unilaterally changing the deal is bad for buisnes by
leaveing the overall environment unable to reliably plan or predict future
actions.

------
ravisarma
The argument (like all "nobody is entitled" arguments) is self-defeating. If
others are not to whine about X, what validates the author's whining about
such others? What the author offers is an explanation of _why_ corporations
offer and revoke features like APIs. I think that is fairly well understood.
That does not answer why others should not complain when that happens ("such
is the world" is not an answer). It is as much a tactic of businesses to use
pressure to open up APIs as it is a tactic of other businesses to offer or not
offer them. What the spurned group are doing is really is making an appeal to
the users of LinkedIn, etc, who are the "owners" of the data. Perhaps the
author does not really wish to lecture others on entitlements, but means that
such complaining is not _effective_. In which case, some data would help.

~~~
monkeymace
It is important be wary of the foundation you build your business on. If you
are building the core of your businesses around another company's API service
you should be prepared to offer concrete value to that service's users in a
way that doesn't directly compete with the main service, or do anything to
directly or indirectly promote their competitors.

And, if you go against that approach you shouldn't be surprised or indignant
when you get shut down. You will have a much better chance building a truly
complimentary product, rather then rallying users to boycott a service or
demand changes in policy.

To me it's sort of like someone who always drives over the speed limit by at
least 50mph, and one day they finally get pulled over and are given a ticket.
But, because they were never 'caught' before, they just feel like they were
entitled to always drive that fast, and instead of just paying the ticket,
they try to get the speed limit laws changed, or to have a judge throw out
their ticket and let them keep driving however they want.

When you use another company's API, you are driving on someone else's road,
and for better of worse you need to play by their rules.

So if you want to drive fast with no consequences, build your own road. And if
your interested in 'exploiting' or piggybacking on someone else
infrastructure, don't do something to call too much attention to your self.

PadMapper - started providing other listings that were not from craigslist.
GoodFilms - providing information and data to other movies services besides
netflix Pealk - were undercutting the price point for LinkedIN premium
features.

------
mathattack
There's no obligation for any company to create an ecosystem about themselves.
It's also not a universal strategy that always maximizes value. 3rd parties
can walk with their feet when they don't like it. If companies are
unreasonable, they get punished in the market. Why is this so controversial?

------
LVB
From Lessig's "The Future of Ideas" concerning the lawsuit against Bidder's
Edge for scraping eBay data:

 _Both sides had a point, and while my bias is with [Bidder's Edge], I don’t
mean to deny the plausibility of a different regime. What I do deny, however,
is that the answer to this question is obvious._

------
dotjinks
Ah, Craigslist sucks. 1\. Their interface sucks. 2\. They won't fix it. 3\.
They won't let anyone else solve it for them. If third parties are not
supposed to scrap data for their users from Craigslist CL's Legal team should
be all over sending a C&D to Google! Sure that's not going to happen because
it would be stupid, but so is killing off Padmapper. A great interface that
keeps Craigslist in mind when someone moves into a new place and wants a TV or
Couch, or even a date. They will look back and wonder why they didn't try
harder to grow with these third parties instead of killing them.

------
waxjar
I think it's helpful to make the assumed premises from both sides explicit.

One is "a website like website x does anything it does to generate profit".
That would be the side the OP takes. The other is "a website like website x
does anything it does to make the world / the internet a better place",
something like that. I think an open source enthusiast would take this
position.

Obviously people value these ideals differently (otherwise this discussion
wouldn't be there) and therefore voice different opinions. With that in mind,
I think it's easier to evaluate the opinions of others on this matter.

------
einhverfr
Geez, I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand who can argue with the
idea that businesses need to have a general autonomy regarding their business
deals?

On the other, I think that when you have a businesses creating industries
around themselves, that a significant amount of that autonomy has to be
abridged.

Take for example Ebay and how they strongly encourage Paypal. If you run into
a problem with Paypal, and your business has a significant presence on Ebay,
that's a pretty heavy cost, and I don't think Ebay should be able to say "so
long, tough luck."

------
egallardo
I see both sides to the argument. Craigslist is acting in their own self
interest as PadMapper was by using CL's data to add value to their service.

While unfortunate, the move by Craiglist isn't surprising. They have done this
repeatedly. The situation PadMapper is in is inevitable for any entity that
isn't self-sustaining..

PadMapper should be working as quickly as possible to capitalize on the added
attention this has caused and start letting users input their listings
directly..

------
korimako
All these companies were built on an infrastructure which tax payer's money
funded the development of before it promised to make a profit. More taxpayer
money was put into the development of the internet than the Manhattan project.
Private companies are reaping the benefit - in my opinion they owe it us to
keep the system open, and API's are just a token gesture in that direction.

------
mufumbo
I believe it's really CL problem. They won't ever find a better mobile
engineer or someone who will even spend 10% of the time I've spent hacking
something cool.

If you got a C&D as well and isn't happy about it, you should go ahead and
make a better product. Otherwise you can go to work for one of their
competitors. That's the beauty of being a hacker.

Just make it sure that online classifieds is your passion.

------
ryanisinallofus
Choosing Pealk as the example in this very short rant is a classic Straw man
argument. What about Padmapper?

~~~
jasonlotito
PadMapper, a company that was working to directly compete with Craigslist?
What about Padmapper?

~~~
monkeymace
thanks for that. PadMapper probably would have been fine if they remained
craigslist only.

I was watching Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai last night. In it there are a
number of Samurai codes that are highlighted in title cards. One of them was
this:

"If one were to say in a word what the condition of being a samurai is, its
basis lies first in seriously devoting one's body and soul to his master. Not
to forget one's master is the most fundamental obligation for a retainer."

~~~
ryanisinallofus
I still think the rant is little more than link-bait (which used to be called
flame-bait) but I feel the same way about iOS app startups. They should each
memorize that quote.

------
rasengan0
I started using Craigslist in the late 1990's before it got 'popular'; some
dates, got an apt, sold a few things, bought a few. The big www thing was
slowing muscling in on newspaper classified turf but not enough of a threat.
There was a sense of community like the Well or BBS dialup days of olde;
people trusted it. I think people value routine and endurance and CL was/is?
seen as a place to community exchange. The heavy text based simple Web 0.5 UI
hasn't changed much since then and yet users still come like people still use
vi or emacs. They all drank the koolaid! 20 yrs later, I hear all this talk of
data/API entitlement and efficiency is the new Winning! I don't get it? If CL
is so lame and inefficient why can't these smart young whippersnappers
replicate such a model of community BBS? Grow/Roll your own, collect your own
data as the article suggests. FFS, there is no monopoly in the hood. There is
some natural selection out thar in the intertubes.

------
joe_the_user
Wait! Wait a gosh-darn second here!

Craiglist _is_ available by RSS and would not be too hard to scrape. You want
"API access", you got it. Unlike Facebook, I haven't heard of anyone tossed
off Craigslist for using a script to access the data Craigslist is happy to
give out for free.

Ah, but you don't want "API access", you want a license to _resell_ the data -
and for free! You want different terms of use. Etc. Wah, wah, wah.

Guess what? That's different. Obviously.

------
cabalamat
> Start-ups should stop feeling entitled to other’s companies data

Other companies' data, or other companies' users' data?

~~~
angryasian
once you post it on craigslist it becomes their data. That doesn't stop you
from posting the same data to other sites. Craigslist doesn't offer this
service but you can freely post your data to other sites, but by no means is
craigslist supposed to offer the data that you gave to them to other sites.

------
wissler
People have a right to complain if they don't agree with a given company's
decision. The fact that the company has a legal right to do something, or the
(alleged) fact that they are basing their decision on "the bottom line", does
not make that decision the right one. And if indeed it is the businesses's
prerogative to do this or that, certainly consumers have at least the right to
voice their disapproval.

I really would like to stop hearing the whine "but they have a right to do X"
every time a business's practices are criticized here on HN.

~~~
monkeymace
You point is valid about the "but they have a right to do X". I think it does
provide good discussion however.

My point wasn't so much that they have the right to do that, but more about
when your playing with another company's API don't expect to disrupt them.

Choose a start-up that is already successfully and profitably using a
company's API and make your service even better. AKA don't compete with the
mothership.

~~~
einhverfr
How far do you take this?

If Microsoft decides tomorrow to say "if you want to write Free/Open Source
Software, you can't use our API's" do they have a right to do so? What if it
is competing with Microsoft software, i.e, "no use of our API's to build
competing web browsers and office software" or the like?

I am genuinely asking because I think it's as clear a line as one might think.

~~~
talmand
Yes, they have the right to do so. It might be a bad idea for them to do it,
but being their APIs they most certainly have the right to do that. Microsoft
has no obligation to provide services to their competition free of charge just
because someone out there feels it is the right thing to do. Of course,
various court systems may disagree with me considering it is Microsoft.

The line is clear, the source of the service has the right to do whatever they
want with it. Unless you want to claim that a company's property belongs to
the people.

~~~
einhverfr
first of all, I am not sure they do have that right. Certainly if they tried,
it would open up questions of the scope of user rights (do I, as a user have
the right to run add-on software on a Microsoft platform independent of
Microsoft's wishes), the scope of copyright (does 17 USC 102(b) provide a safe
harbor for interoperability and prevent a software vendor from using
copyrights to deny areas for competition), and the like. And that's before
getting into anti-trust law.....

So I think in Microsoft's case I would argue that they have a) no legal or
moral right to impose such and b) no effective mechanism to enforce such
conditions. They make practical tools, and people may use those tools in
whatever ways they see fit. To the extent Microsoft can limit this through a
EULA, they are subject to all sorts of judicial scrutiny.

For example, I have a hard time imagining that a "you may not run a web server
on this edition of Windows" would be enforcible. Client access license
requirements might be in some cases but I don't know what the dimensions are
that they would be.

The question with Craigslist only becomes harder because to interoperate you
are interacting with Craigslist's infrastructure. This is of course covered
arguably by a different set of laws which may give Craigslist a bit more
freedom. But we have laws in many states that restrict what, say, shopping
malls can require of people entering (a shopping mall in California, for
example, cannot prohibit pamphletting).

I would like to see similar rules passed regarding the internet equivalent of
shopping malls, to be honest.

~~~
talmand
I apologize, I should have been more clear. I agree with you about Microsoft
and limiting things for third-parties in Windows. They've gone too far to be
able to do that, Apple might be able to do it but they're quickly reaching
that point with OSX. I was speaking more of APIs that Microsoft might create
for various things web-related, as it relates to the story about Craigslist.

