Have you ever wondered how Craigslist makes money?

[SunnyD]

I have. Then I asked google, which had Forbes tell me.

And then despite all of Craigslist's flaws, I all of a sudden find myself with a ridiculously huge amount of respect for Buckmaster.

"Is maximizing profit not part of the equation?'' Schachter asked.

"That's definitely not part of the equation,'' Buckmaster said. "That's never been a goal ... We have been fortunate to do well by doing good, whatever phrase you want to use, by focusing only on improving the service for users.''

And more importantly:

"We certainly have been approached about putting text ads on the site quite a few times,'' Buckmaster said, adding that, "The numbers are quite staggering, the amount of revenue that could be added.''

So why not add them to the site?

"No users have been requesting that we run text ads,'' he replied, as if that were a perfectly sensible answer.

Granted, this article was from 2006, but it still seems to hold mostly true today. Takes some balls to run a business like that.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Have known that for years. Nothing new here.

 

[Rallispec]

They do charge for real estate and some other listings, right?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

"We have been fortunate to do well by doing good, whatever phrase you want to use, by focusing only on improving the service for users.''

I started laughing uncontrollably there and couldn't read the rest.

 

[SunnyD]

They do charge for real estate and some other listings, right?

Only in certain markets, as well as job listings.

 

[DesiPower]

yes, certain markets, jobs, realestates, all those kind of things are not free. That's because CL lost a lawsuit and was forced to do it..

 

[CPA]

Ours is to try to be as philanthropic in our core business as we can be and leave all the money out there in the hands of users.

If only government had the same philosophy.

Also, I love how San Fran is charged the most. I wonder if the San Fran City Council knows this and has considered banning the charge.

 

[darkxshade]

Hookers and blow is a growth industry and CL is the pioneer at bringing that to market for a modest price. 😉

 

[Red Storm]

Well "ads" are there if you look at normal listings. Once you filter out the by dealer posts they're almost all gone.

 

[sniperruff]

I started laughing uncontrollably there and couldn't read the rest.

The simple interface works for me - just sold a few hundred dollars worth of old computer stuff for zero fees. I actually don't like how they're tweaking the UI, and prefer back when it was simple.

 

[zinfamous]

They do charge for real estate and some other listings, right?

real estate and job listings. afaik, that is their sole revenue source. then again, I did not read the article.

I think you might have to pay some fees to list big tickets items like vehicles, but I could be wrong about that.