Declassified
Aug 2, 2024
Craiglist’s simple website was one of the biggest blows to the newspaper industry. It removed a huge source of income and was in many ways more effective than the low tech version. Every aspect of using Craigslist was easier than working with a classified.
From the advertiser’s perspective:
- It was free
- It could be posted at any time
- You didn’t have to talk with anyone to post it
- You could edit it after it went live
- There wasn’t the limit that was associated with other classifieds
From the consumer’s perspective:
- You could access it without needing to pay for a newspaper
- You could search
- You could see when it was last updated
- You could communicate directly to the advertiser through the website
It wasn’t an incremental improvement over the classified ad, it was a paradigm shift. There are many of these ahead of us still.
