I find this sort of thing very frustrating to read:
"The search tool is antiquated, the images are poor or nonexistent, locations of listings are hardly dependable, and you can forget about an integrated way to save anything for later reference. There is a litany of shortcomings that come with the Craigslist apartment search; they are many and they are painful..."
If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL. Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL.
And so now we get to the meat ...
"...Your site is chock-full of data I need..."
Ahh...data you NEED.
So here's the thing. If you truly need the data, then you need Craigslist and you have an obligation to use it the way they (and only they) want you to use it. If you don't like the way they want you to use it, there are several choices:
* Go work for them and convince them to improve it.
* Build a better mousetrap.
The former probably won't succeed, so the latter seems to be the way to go.
Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement. They're not locked in. If they were, that would be a whole different discussion - then we can talk about anti-competitive, innovation-stifling behavior. But that's not the case - the only reason people list apartments on CL is because it works. Despite the bad UI. Hence the reason CL hasn't changed it.
So it's the job of some enterprising entrepreneur not only ro build a better mousetrap, but convince people to use it. Until that happens, as much as I too dislike the Craigslist UI, I can't say I support PadMapper on this one.
If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL. Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL.
Apartments aren't a fungible item. If I'm looking for an apartment in a certain area and 75% of the apartments in that area are only being listed on Craigslist, then how can I realistically "choose" to use another avenue for apartment listings?
Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement.
There are huge barriers preventing landlords from listing their apartments outside of craigslist. Nothing is as popular, so why waste the time? They don't have hours to scour the internet looking for alternatives, nor do they probably want to have to manage listings at many difference sites.
There are huge barriers preventing landlords from listing their apartments outside of craigslist. Nothing is as popular, so why waste the time?
I think you have a flawed idea of what constitutes "huge barriers". The only thing stopping them from listing elsewhere is a cost-benefit analysis? I weep.
I think you are looking at this backwards. How many listings are there on Craigslist for a given city? 100, 200, 500, 1000? (I know city dependent)
There is absolutely no reason that PadMapper cannot call them on the phone, and ask them to list with PadMapper. They can make it trivially easy supporting email, phone, or fax listings. They can sell them on using PadMapper.
Many apartments are owned by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) there are dozens (not hundreds) of those. You can sell the REIT on the concept of easy listings that are so much better/cleaner/easier than Craigslist.
Craigslist was created when near every apartment was listed in the Classified Ads in the print newspaper. That wasn't "lock in" it was an opportunity, they sold these folks on lower costs (since Classifieds were a money fund for newspapers) Landlords hated the extortionate prices that the newspapers charged but they didn't have an alternative, Craigslist gave them that alternative, they moved.
So the 'answer' here is to actually build a classifieds business around rental space. That takes more than slinging some node.js and scraping other sites. Granted its 'easier' for a technical person to do it that way, but its not a 'sustainable' way of doing it.
That wasn't "lock in" it was an opportunity, they sold these folks on lower costs (since Classifieds were a money fund for newspapers) Landlords hated the extortionate prices that the newspapers charged but they didn't have an alternative, Craigslist gave them that alternative, they moved.
But you are using an example in which there was a clear downside to using the existing listing model. The price. If you are a landlord and you have no problem renting out apartments in a reasonable amount of time on Craigslist, and it's free, what exactly can another site offer that is "better"?
They are already getting their apartments rented, there is minimal overhead to using Craigslist. You can't compete with Craigslist on price, unless you are actually giving landlords money for listing on your site. And trying to say "It's easier for users to find your properties." doesn't help if they aren't having a problem with renting out their properties.
> If you truly need the data, then you need Craigslist and you have an obligation to use it the way they (and only they) want you to use it.
This is what we call a monopoly. Many people (apartment hunters in this context) need to use Craigslist because there are no viable alternatives. Just like you have to pay your local utility for water or power -- there are alternatives, but not viable ones.
And a two-sided monopoly is a very real monopoly.
The difference is that other monopolies get regulated; Craigslist is not. Given their current behavior, I'd strongly support a law that explicitly denies craigslist any exclusive right to their listing data.
> If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL. Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL.
Yes they are being "forced" to list on CL, because as much as you hate the UX, UI, etc., that's where the buyers are. And as much as the buyers hate the site, that's where the sellers are. I hate CL, but I was forced to use it because lock-in makes it impossible for anyone else to compete.
> Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement. They're not locked in.
That's disingenuous. Craigslist is pretty much the only game in town in many places. Let's say you need to find a person with a specific need, willing to pay $2000 a month. If you don't find this person, you have to pay the $2000 a month. How do you feel about not using Craigslist now?
If they want to make some UI that they like, then they can do it. If they want to offer this to others, they can do it.
If they want to load the data into some SQL database, they can do it.
If they want split the data into some other format using csplit and load into some other faster database, they can do it.
If they want to extract a portion of a raw file and just use agrep on that, they can do it.
The point is that UI is a personal decision.
Because some people do not like CL's bare bones UI doesn't give them the right to do anything. Because some people don't like bloated and clumsy web interfaces and prefer text commands doesn't give them the right to do anything either.
But people can't be stopped from making personal decisions about how to process data. Public data.
It's funny how some websites think they "own" data that is given to them. Do they "need" this data? Yes, they do.
"The search tool is antiquated, the images are poor or nonexistent, locations of listings are hardly dependable, and you can forget about an integrated way to save anything for later reference. There is a litany of shortcomings that come with the Craigslist apartment search; they are many and they are painful..."
If you don't like the site, don't like the UI, and can't stand the UX, then don't use the site. Nobody is forcing you to search for an apartment on CL. Nobody is forcing owners to list apartments on CL.
And so now we get to the meat ...
"...Your site is chock-full of data I need..."
Ahh...data you NEED.
So here's the thing. If you truly need the data, then you need Craigslist and you have an obligation to use it the way they (and only they) want you to use it. If you don't like the way they want you to use it, there are several choices:
* Go work for them and convince them to improve it. * Build a better mousetrap.
The former probably won't succeed, so the latter seems to be the way to go.
Look, there's nothing preventing landlords from listing their apartments on Craigslist AND your new Craigslist replacement/improvement. They're not locked in. If they were, that would be a whole different discussion - then we can talk about anti-competitive, innovation-stifling behavior. But that's not the case - the only reason people list apartments on CL is because it works. Despite the bad UI. Hence the reason CL hasn't changed it.
So it's the job of some enterprising entrepreneur not only ro build a better mousetrap, but convince people to use it. Until that happens, as much as I too dislike the Craigslist UI, I can't say I support PadMapper on this one.