Is Craigslist Dying?

Facebook marketplace is killing it for classifieds

Not where I'm at. Less young people have Facebook so will use other services like Craigslist. Yard sales are also popular.

Like others here, facebook took over the market ..market in my area as well.

However, I think we can all agree Craigslist really died the second they removed the casual encounters section.

I still like it. But it does have two problems:

1. Post spam. There is no enforcement of the posting rules, and nobody reacts if they are reported. For example, I'm looking for a Volvo, and people post a Dodge but put every car manufacturer name in the listing so they show up in every search.

2. Scam fucking overload. Every time I post anything for sale, the scam traffic is overwhelming. I listed a car and got like 12 similar scam responses. Most appeared to be chat bots with no human behind it. Some surprised me by responding to my sarcastic replies.

But I still look there. The site works for the most part, especially if you use the search modifiers. And selling stuff works too. Sometimes you get murdered, but it's rare.

At least as far as apartment listings in California go, in my experience most of them are scams and phishing schemes. So yeah, 5-10 years ago most were legit postings, now it’s flipped.

Marketplace killed it. Thanks zucc

TIL: Craigslist still existed.

Craigslist was one of the examples of the potential of the early internet, where we could have nice things because all the users valued it. Its falling victim to enshittification even with no ads and no connection to big tech.

Nah I like to go through Craigslist. I live in the Orange County area and lots of people use it.

Fighting off bots and scrapers has become a huge problem for every site on the internet.

It's not surprising that a site that has kept a web 1.0 ethos and style hasn't updated the back-end to more appropriately deal with these types of attacks.

Further, craigslist functioned on not needing a ton of moderators for the whole shebang. Keeping it simple allowed costs to be low.

The bot armies have changed that calculus, now you need a ton of well-paid moderators to make it functional, and I would suspect a site like Craigslist simply doesn't pull enough income to be able to justify those sort of costs.

So instead, it will wither and rot on the vine.

I posted several large wood working machines for sale there in the past year and every one was bought within 24 hours.

Craigslist died in my area the minute Marketplace opened up. It's a shame too because Marketplace is hot garbage for browsing cars. You can select what color you want but not engine or drivetrain for example.

Everyone here uses Kijiji or Facebook Markeplace. Craigslist isn't on anyone's radar because it has a reputation for being sketchy.

In my experience yes. The Facebook marketplace killed it. Which sucks because I refuse to use facebook.

It would be nice to have a decentralized or federated buy/sell platform that replaces craigslist. Facebook marketplace has absolutely eaten craigslist for lunch, and I hate that I have to use it to sell stuff, but there are few viable alternatives for local sales.

eBay is great until you want to sell a $300 iPhone and don't want to mess with buyer return fraud which is rampant on that platform (and most custodial payment services like PayPal). I don't sell anything on eBay for over >$100, got burned too many times.

Facebool marketplace did a number on Craigslist. Also you need to pay five dollars to post a car ad now which sucks.

Oddly enough I've had the most success selling things on craigslist in the past few years. When I list things on OfferUp I get some messages but everyone is super flaky. People are still flaky on craigslist but I almost always end up closing the sale there instead of OfferUp

Long since dead here. Nothing but scams and data harvesting.

Craigslist has been spam for quite a while at this point. Even for me in my thirties, I don't know anyone who has used it legitimately for at least a decade.

Seems mostly dead for apt rentals / roommate wanted type stuff. I used to use it years ago but nowadays it's mostly scam posts and no one I know would use Craigslist for finding roommates / looking for rooms. The site itself has a reputation for having shady posters so people tend to avoid it.

I still use Craigslist, but it does seem like fewer other people do. I've never really cared to get top dollar for whatever I list, I mostly just want to avoid tossing it in the garbage or hauling it to a donation drop off, and it's worked well for that. I'm currently browsing for a few items, and it does feel cluttered with dealers, even when supposedly limiting it for sale by owner only.

I tried Offer Up once a few years ago, and for some reason, it didn't notify me of any responses, so by the time I thought to check it again, I had already sold the item through CL. I refuse to use any Meta products, so FB Marketplace effectively doesn't exist to me.

As weird as it sounds, Facebook Marketplace is actually really good last I checked for a lot of the buying and selling aspect that Craigslist used to be good for

I think it still exists within a happy medium wherein the site owners are paying enough attention that most of the blatant scammers can get chased away, but not so much attention that they start trying to make money off it and ruin it

Craigslist in my area is at least 90% spam, FB Marketplace is also not super active. OfferUp is pretty popular though.

Permanently Deleted

I was going to post something to CL a month or two ago, but was shunned away by new & intrusive PII collection... seemed offensive and discordant with the original spirit of CL, and I ended up "nope'n out" instead. RIP another internet era/icon.

Can I still find chicks who want to trade sex for rent?