I'd also say that a lot of startups don't do a very good job of competing. YardSale launched a big press push last week saying that they'd post your listing to Craigslist for you. The contact link in the Craigslist post goes to a sign-up form for the Yardsale app. Pretty much useless for selling anything and mainly just a user acquisition ploy.
I was actually pretty disappointed because I really care about how hard it is to post to Craigslist. I think that's a huge issue right now and will be for them going forward. As more people rely on smartphones as their primary computing device (and selling device for that matter---phone, sms, camera, email, etc.), there will be more opportunity to create something that takes casual sellers away (who are also buyers, wink). Obviously at niches at first, but it's going to be a serious weakness (if an 800lb gorilla can have a serious weakness). Call me crazy, but their complete disinterest in mobile (not Mobile, AL - http://mobile.craigslist.org) is IMO their Achilles heel.
Payments, reputation, spammers--I agree that none of that matters because it introduces way too much transaction friction (and annoying things like taxable income!)
What I do care about is that fact that in 2012, people try to sell their couch without a photo, when nearly everyone on an Internet-enabled smartphone has posted a picture to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram without even thinking twice about it. That's just weird.
I was actually pretty disappointed because I really care about how hard it is to post to Craigslist. I think that's a huge issue right now and will be for them going forward. As more people rely on smartphones as their primary computing device (and selling device for that matter---phone, sms, camera, email, etc.), there will be more opportunity to create something that takes casual sellers away (who are also buyers, wink). Obviously at niches at first, but it's going to be a serious weakness (if an 800lb gorilla can have a serious weakness). Call me crazy, but their complete disinterest in mobile (not Mobile, AL - http://mobile.craigslist.org) is IMO their Achilles heel.
Payments, reputation, spammers--I agree that none of that matters because it introduces way too much transaction friction (and annoying things like taxable income!)
What I do care about is that fact that in 2012, people try to sell their couch without a photo, when nearly everyone on an Internet-enabled smartphone has posted a picture to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram without even thinking twice about it. That's just weird.