Any company is entitled to whatever they provide and it's not your place to sit as judge. People give them the information, for free. Craigslist displays it, for free.
Unless someone sues Craigslist for some sort of anti-trust regulation, the challenge for people desiring to compete in the Craigslist's market is to build something from the ground up. (Oh, and it's always a market people are after, it's not "Oh, we want to help people find apartments better because we're nice people"). The fact that it's difficult is the entrepreneur's problem, not Craigs.
Strongly disagree. Just as a company is entitled to provide whatever they wish, consumers are entitled to form views of the company based on their actions.
consumers are entitled to form views of the company based on their actions.
And arguably not just entitled to form views, but morally obligated to do so. In a mostly unregulated industry (like classified ads), the court of public opinion is one of the more powerful checks civil society can deploy to police corporations.
Boycotts, bad press, strikes, activism, and the like can all change corporate behavior to some extent. For most people, these tools are the only way to influence corporations. Most people don't have the money to lobby Congress. "Voting with your dollars" doesn't really work with monopolies, or quasi-monopolies. And founding competing startups is a fantasy even for most entrepreneurially-minded hackers, let alone regular folk with families, mortgages, and no programming skill.
If we say these methods shouldn't ever be used, we're basically saying only laws can regulate corporate behavior. That sounds like a recipe for more and worse laws, more lobbying, and worse corporate behavior.
It seems like more of the people dissatisfied with Craigslist would be directing their ire at the CEO (Jim Buckmaster), and not Craig himself. Of the two I would assume (perhaps incorrectly) that despite the "Craig" in Craiglist, it would be the CEO responsible for the decisions this company is making...
Craig of Craigslist isn't exactly the same as any old employee of any old company. I understand the distinction you're trying to make, but the fact that it's hard in this case is a side-effect of the context they've worked very hard to create. In other words, they're asking for it.
A company is just 1:N people trying to accomplish something (usually earn profit). I would usually agree that it's best to treat a company separate from the individuals there. But in the case of Craigslist it may be fair since Craig has full control of the company, and the companies latest actions are clearly done by either his command or with his consent.
Not to mention his name is on the freaking company! Hard to separate the two when that happens. If you have a problem with Craig's List, why not complain about Craig?
The company, regardless of laws that claim individual rights for corporations, is not something that can be judged independently of the people who comprise it. If you judge a company you are by definition judging it's employees, owners, shareholders, etc. If you are not considering the people, then a company itself is almost nothing.
This isn't a personal attack. It's an observation. I sincerely lack a better way to characterize Craig's behavior. Since Craigslist is as small as it is and is named after the founder, it's very difficult to explain these seemingly irrational decisions without understanding the man behind them.
I think at heart he's a good guy, but he's clearly not thinking correctly here.
This kind of diatribe -- along with the PadMapper debacle -- simply makes the participants look like naive entitled children.
You don't understand why Craig won't play in your sandbox, berate him for not doing so, shout at the world that CRAIG IS A MEANIE.
Yet, Craigslist is phenomenally successful, and has an enviable organization model that has allowed them to stay true to what matters to them. The fact that these things don't matter to you does not make them wrong.
Craigslist has a "lifestyle" business with revenue numbers that would make any startup green with envy, and it seems to me that you -- and others like you -- can't get your head around the fact that Craig (and Craigslist) is so successful, and yet they do not want to play your game.
If you think Craigslist sucks, then either make a better one, or figure out how to work with Craigslist within a framework that does not run counter to their established ethos. That probably means no venture capital, and no standard corporate organizational model.
Simply taking what you want -- or haranguing them openly for not operating the way you would like -- is simply childish petulance.
The point is that, due to network effects and first-mover advantage, it's way harder to displace craigslist than building a better product.
Now, that's not illegal on craig/craigslist's part, but he can either be an openness-advocating philanthropreneur, as he tends to brand himself, or he can be a lockdown value extractor with a legal team, as it seems they're on their way to becoming. Can't be both.
> Now, that's not illegal on craig/craigslist's part, but he can either be an openness-advocating philanthropreneur, as he tends to brand himself, or he can be a lockdown value extractor with a legal team, as it seems they're on their way to becoming. Can't be both.
So say The Police Of Moral Rectitude? I don't really see the point here. Craigslist isn't actively harming the industry, they're just running their own businesses. How they choose to do so is their own concern, and they have no obligation to give their business away to people that want to replace them.
Oh, boo hoo! He did the hard work. He earned the first mover advantage. Go be disruptive without being a thief. Make a compelling product that steals his users, not his data.
> The second step is to make everyone else realize there is a problem with the current one (by making a big stink out of it).
If that's true, then the conversation would be about the product, not about how Craiglist's disinterest in bootstrapping other people's businesses just isn't fair.
That's the difference between a product that is built as a castle and building an product that supports an ecosystem. These are design and business choices for the product. The interoperability of a device is not a separate consideration from it's design and construction, and in the same way, the accessibility methods available for a web service is not just a pure business decision, but is also a fundamental element of the products design. There is also no rule to say that ideas of fairness cannot be included as part of a product specification.
I'm not saying they are under an obligation to be fair, just pointing out that considerations of fairness are part of a conversation about the product. There is no special dividing wall here that excludes interoperability policy from everything else, when it comes to making a criticism of a service.
While there's obviously a bit more nuance in your general idea, in this particular case, you may as well criticize McDonalds for not giving away their hamburgers.
I could fairly criticize them for tempting students to eat awful food though, I suppose. Something like, "How dare McDonalds give away their hamburgers!" ;)
Well, that would make no sense in comparison as having a certain level of open API access is not the same thing as giving away your entire business. In fact, if you do it well, surely it drives costumers to you as it widens their available exposure.
CL has determined that displaying their listings on sites other than their own hurts rather than helps their brand which is why they don't offer an API.
Which loops back to what I was saying to start with, which is that is a business and design decision that it is completely fair to criticise if people want to.
Craigslist have decided on a strategy, and it might go well for them, or it might not. Given the amount of apparent annoyance they have stirred up, it might well backfire.
No, they don't owe anyone anything and if they decided to shut down the entire service tomorrow so they could spend more time bowling, that would be completely within their rights.
But people are free to critisise them for their actions if they wish and so I was taking issue with flatline's original assertion that discussing issues of fairness on API access was effectively outside the remit of fair criticism of the product itself.
I actually find CL's actions entirely rational. A business is about building value and services such as pad mapper decrease that value. Its easy to say PadMapper is just an overlay on top of Craigslist data - but its not. PadMapper aggregates data from other providers and in fact allows users to post to it directly.
If I owned PadMapper my business plan would be to leech listings from all over the place in an effort to grab traffic to the point where people use my service (and pay to list there) first. Isn't that the goal? CL doesn't want these types of services to build their market on the backs of the value they've created for their customers (people who post) and their audience.
Hi Jeremy, thanks for writing about this. I actually think Craig has removed himself from the decision-making there, which probably explains the seeming conflict between his personality and the company's.
That's possible. However, if that's the case, I'm surprised Craig hasn't engaged at all on this issue. It would seem an awful lot of lousy stuff is happening in his name.
"Legally rightful" is often different from "morally rightful". Craig is morally in the wrong - he seized control over classifieds market, and is now using that position to stall the progress and harm consumers.
By way of analogy, saying "build your own stuff" is akin to saying "build your own popular OS and sell it to OEMs" in the face of a crushing Microsoft monopoly on the nineties. The network effect is far too strong for a free-market approach to work its magic, and as a result we all suffer.
I wonder if Craig realizes he became a Microsoft-style monopoly. That should be a very uncomfortable thought to him.
You say "seized control" like he showed up with a bunch of armed goons and wrested it away from its rightful owner. Craigslist dominates online classifieds because they recognized it was a market worth serving years before the incumbents in classifieds did, and served it. It's not a crime to get there first.
I wonder if Craig realizes he became a Microsoft-style monopoly
I must have missed the part where Craigslist used their dominant position in classified advertising to unfairly benefit other products they offer.
> You say "seized control" like he showed up with a bunch of armed goons and wrested it away from its rightful owner. Craigslist dominates online classifieds because they recognized it was a market worth serving years before the incumbents in classifieds did, and served it. It's not a crime to get there first.
I agree that "seize" is poor word choice, but the fact that he gained a monopoly position through legal competition does not negate the fact that it's a monopoly.
>I must have missed the part where Craigslist used their dominant position in classified advertising to unfairly benefit other products they offer.
They use it to advance an unusual philosophy. Yes, this is different from using it to get money, but the effect for those of us who do not share their philosophy are similar.
If Standard Oil used the money earned from its monopoly powers to buy teddy bears for orphans, that wouldn't have reduced arguments that it was a trust and needed to be broken up. (And given Rockefeller's philanthropy, this isn't too far from the truth.)
Edit (since I can't reply): network effects keep out other competitors. I don't know what "unfair practices" are defined as, I just know that monopolies insulated from competition are bad. Somewhat analogous was Standard Oil's policy of dropping their prices below cost locally long enough for small competitors to go out of business, and then raising them afterwards. New competitors were prevented from entering because Standard Oil had a reliable threat of doing it again. This didn't require Standard Oil to apply horizontal leverage (i.e. using dominance in the market for one product to influence another).
> I agree that "seize" is poor word choice,
> but the fact that he gained a monopoly position
> through legal competition does not negate the fact
> that it's a monopoly.
Putting up a classified ads web site is dead simple. There are no barriers to entry other than the kind of technical competence displayed by high school kids, and five or ten bucks to fund your hosting account.
The fact that it is immensely difficult to attract users away from an established site does not make CL a monopoly. The fact that nobody cares that you have a "better mousetrap" does not make CL a monopoly.
Doesn't come near unfair practices though - nobody is being muscled out. They aren't using their market position to force anyone out - unless you want to pretend that deciding who can and can't use their services for whatever purpose is something they shouldn't be allowed to do, ethically or legally.
I agree that it's better to ascribe the responsibilities for Craigslist's recent actions to the company, not Craig Newmark.
That aside, the company's actions clearly merit calling them jerks. Their customers are trying to sell, rent and employ. Craigslist forbids them to do so via any other means. Acting against the interests of its customers makes a company a jerk.
You're missing the point. If I post the same ad directly on PadMapper (let's say), how does one know if PadMapper scraped it from Craigslist or I cross posted it?
The way it reads, and the only way I can imagine it could be enforced, is that you are granting Craigslist the exclusive right to advertise that item or at the very least the exact text you used to advertise that item.
"Clicking ‘Continue’ confirms that craigslist is the exclusive licensee of this content"
If a user then takes their post and submits it to another site that asks for a license to the post, the user has breached their contract with Craigslist. I see no evidence for the significance of the distinction you describe.
This seems like a fine point, and I wonder if it's actually true. Has there really been any case of a person being sued or threatened by Craigslist for cross-posting their ad - that is, posting their ad on Craigslist and also somewhere else? Keep in mind we're far afield here of what happened with PadMapper, which didn't have anything to do with anyone cross-posting their own ads.
This policy is new, so there can't be examples of Craigslist using it against users. They probably will never use it against users. However, I don't enter contracts I don't plan to abide by. No one should.
Craig is morally entitled to provide or not provide whatever service he wants. He is not morally entitled to behave like an organized crime boss and shut down other people's services by threat of armed force.
Anyone can sit and judge on anything they wish, you can judge someone's business, their politics, their religion, whatever. You might think it is impolite, however there isn't any hard and fast rule that says anyone has to be polite either.
You are judging that other people aren't allowed to judge someone else on the service they provide. Why do you feel that you can tell them the terms of what is reasonable behaviour while in the same breath tell them that it is not their place to do the same to others?
Any company is entitled to whatever they provide and it's not your place to sit as judge. People give them the information, for free. Craigslist displays it, for free.
Unless someone sues Craigslist for some sort of anti-trust regulation, the challenge for people desiring to compete in the Craigslist's market is to build something from the ground up. (Oh, and it's always a market people are after, it's not "Oh, we want to help people find apartments better because we're nice people"). The fact that it's difficult is the entrepreneur's problem, not Craigs.