Even worse is that the slant about being able to use that money to do good in the world (e.g. fund journalism, etc) is almost certainly a swipe from Spolsky's recent craigslist rant on stackoverflow. I guess they might have had the same idea at roughly the same time, but I'm disinclined to think that given Godin's shoddy writing/work lately.
It's almost impossible to charge $1 for something.
As soon as you start charging you need, a secure site, a credit card processor, accountants, lawyers, tax accountants, tax lawyers - repeat for each state/province/country/jurisdiction.
You go from a company with a dozen programmers enjoying what you do to a company of 1000s of employees making sure you have met the requirements for an out of state advertiser in Nowheresville Ak
They're established, they can start charging and as far as I know they already are for some categories. They've not got a chicken and egg problem. So I'm not sure what's so 'unbelievably weak'.
On a side note, Joel Spolsky was arguing the same point a couple of weeks back on one of the SO podcasts. He obviously said a lot more, being Joel. I'm paraphrasing poorly but one of his better points was that there's a certain amount of potential money in CL that at the moment is being spent on the very small social good of totally free listings. But he lamented the fact that it used to be spent on the much greater social good of journalism, which is a waste as people don't really need free listings, but they need good journalism for a healthy democracy:
They went on to conclude charging on all categories in CL was inevitable to stop the spammers and perhaps they could use the extra revenue to start funding digital journalism.
That was a great podcast and it had me thinking. But what had me thinking more is when I found out that Joel is also subverting journalism with his million dollar plus in yearly revenue job board: http://jobs.joelonsoftware.com.
as far as I know they already are for some categories.
The fact that CL is already doing the thing that Godin just descended from the sky to tell us CL should do is, to you, evidence that this isn't 'unbelievably weak'? Will you start reading my blog if I promise to fill it with gems like "What if Google started matching ads with searches?" or "What if Amazon started up an affiliate program?"
For the record, I think Spolsky can be pretty unbelievably lame, as well. People have been talking about how CL should monetize for years.
I have a better idea: what if it costs 1 cent?
That would generate no revenue, but harass posters enough so CraigsList would quickly go out of business.
jbellis|16 years ago
It's well understood that the psychological difference between free and $1 is much larger than the difference between $1 and $2.
calambrac|16 years ago
unknown|16 years ago
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cemerick|16 years ago
microcentury|16 years ago
ujibuip|16 years ago
You go from a company with a dozen programmers enjoying what you do to a company of 1000s of employees making sure you have met the requirements for an out of state advertiser in Nowheresville Ak
ptomato|16 years ago
mattmanser|16 years ago
On a side note, Joel Spolsky was arguing the same point a couple of weeks back on one of the SO podcasts. He obviously said a lot more, being Joel. I'm paraphrasing poorly but one of his better points was that there's a certain amount of potential money in CL that at the moment is being spent on the very small social good of totally free listings. But he lamented the fact that it used to be spent on the much greater social good of journalism, which is a waste as people don't really need free listings, but they need good journalism for a healthy democracy:
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/09/podcast-67/
They went on to conclude charging on all categories in CL was inevitable to stop the spammers and perhaps they could use the extra revenue to start funding digital journalism.
TheElder|16 years ago
Revenue for the job board was found here: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-th...
calambrac|16 years ago
The fact that CL is already doing the thing that Godin just descended from the sky to tell us CL should do is, to you, evidence that this isn't 'unbelievably weak'? Will you start reading my blog if I promise to fill it with gems like "What if Google started matching ads with searches?" or "What if Amazon started up an affiliate program?"
For the record, I think Spolsky can be pretty unbelievably lame, as well. People have been talking about how CL should monetize for years.
dennisgorelik|16 years ago