Dull thoughts in a sharp world.

Wired recently published an article on “Why Craigslist is Such a Mess”, highlighting the history of Craiglist, the personalities involved with Craigslist, and some interesting insight into Craig Newmark.

This is old-fashioned. But craigslist is old-fashioned in any number of ways. It relies on email and the telephone in an era of SMS and social networks. It sticks to traceless transactions in an industry that makes its living collecting data from every touch. And just as people who run technical companies are reaching an apex of confidence in their ability to invent new forms of community based on sharing everything, craigslist still treats social life as dangerously complex, deserving the most jaded caution. Corporate isolation, user anonymity, refusal of excessive profit, glacial adoption of new features: These all signal Newmark and Buckmaster’s wariness about what humans, including themselves, might do if given the chance. There may be a peace sign on every page, but the implicit political philosophy of craigslist has a deeply conservative, even a tragic cast. Every day the choristers of the social web chirp their advice about openness and trust; craigslist follows none of it, and every day it grows.

Seems that though Craiglist has it’s problems with spam, scammers, and immortal and unethical community members, it continues to thrive.  I’ve seen startup after startup attempt to solve the “Craigslist” problem, but come up empty handed.  Seems that consumers choose free over reduction of spam/risk of being scammed and improved functionality.  Solid article and worth a read… view here.