Ask YC: Why can't anyone compete with craigslist? | Hacker News

Ask YC: Why can't anyone compete with craigslist? | Hacker News: IsaacSchlueter 1275 days ago | link

Whenever there is something free and useful, it's only a matter of time before a not-quite-as-free and even-more-useful alternative comes along.

Craigslist is the ultimate "free and useful" site. But it does a lot.

Dating sites, in particular, outdo Craigslist for personals pretty routinely. OKCupid and PlentyOfFish are almost as free (they have ads), but are much less spammy. (CL's w4m boards are pretty much 100% spam. The others aren't much better. Actually, I'm not sure why they even continue to keep them up.)

The last time I sold a car, and the last time I bought one, I did use CL pretty aggressively, but the actual deal I ended up making was through Autotrader both times.

So, it's possible to compete with Craigslist in specific areas, but it's a bit foolish to try to be the "all forms of classified", since they do THAT pretty damn well. They've stripped down the feature set to the point where it's just what is necessary, and nothing else. Not a bad strategy. (Arguably, the only one that really works.)

The trick is to find something where CL is the best of breed, and figure out the pain points. If the answer is "there aren't any pain points", then move on to the next idea.

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