{"id":19695,"date":"2020-02-19T22:49:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T22:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=19695"},"modified":"2020-02-20T04:04:41","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T04:04:41","slug":"craigslist-turns-25-a-reminder-that-a-more-democratic-version-of-the-internet-can-still-thrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/craigslist-turns-25-a-reminder-that-a-more-democratic-version-of-the-internet-can-still-thrive\/","title":{"rendered":"Craigslist turns 25 \u2013 a reminder that a more democratic version of the internet can still thrive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessa Lingel<\/a>, University of Pennsylvania<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Fake news<\/a>. Online surveillance<\/a>. Phishing scams<\/a>. Biased algorithms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to be cynical about the internet, and harder to remember a time when being online felt less commercial and more democratic. But there was a period when websites didn\u2019t rely on user data for profit margins, when people still viewed the internet as a radical laboratory for freedom and liberty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Can those ideas and values from the earliest days of the web be revived? Or is the internet a lost cause?<\/p>\n

In my new book, \u201cAn Internet for the People<\/a>,\u201d I look at one popular website that has a lot to teach us: Craigslist. Twenty-five years after its launch<\/a>, Craigslist is a reminder that the earlier, more democratic version of the internet can still thrive.<\/p>\n

The platform has weathered the internet\u2019s boom-and-bust cycle<\/a>, with countless peers and competitors coming and going. The site looks more or less the same today as it did in the late 1990s.<\/p>\n

Sort of like a shark that\u2019s never had to evolve, Craigslist has remained incredibly successful without giving up values of anonymity, accessibility and transparency.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need to turn users into data<\/h2>\n

Craigslist started as an email listserv in 1995, when early web enthusiasts were looking for a sense of community and DIY education. By 1996, it had become a website with job listings, apartment rentals and personal ads. Almost as soon as the internet was becoming widely available \u2013 roughly 1 out of 5<\/a> households was online at the time \u2013 Craigslist was there to help people find roommates, look for jobs, go on blind dates or sell used furniture.<\/p>\n

Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster has been at the helm since 2001 and the founder, Craig Newmark, is still involved in the company. For years, Newmark did customer service<\/a>, responding to design complaints and concerns about scams. Today, Craigslist has more monthly page visits than The New York Times<\/a> or ESPN<\/a>, and it\u2019s been incredibly profitable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Its profitability might come as a surprise to some. Many of those I spoke with thought Craigslist was a nonprofit or that it was community-run. In fact, Craigslist has always charged money for certain ads, like job postings and classified ads. (By siphoning revenue from classified ads, Craigslist has been one reason newspapers across the country have struggled to stay in business<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

More recently, Craigslist has started charging for other kinds of ads, like real estate listings from firms and car ads from dealers.<\/p>\n

But regular users don\u2019t have to pay a fee. The site doesn\u2019t display banner ads<\/a>, nor does it sell user data to third parties.<\/p>\n

This is a very direct relationship between user and platform \u2013 and it\u2019s totally different from the convoluted streams of data and targeted advertising used by platforms like Facebook and Google. When Facebook users aren\u2019t sure how the platform makes money, it\u2019s because the process of analyzing data and selling ads is deliberately hidden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Craigslist users don\u2019t know how the platform makes money, it\u2019s because they\u2019re part of the user group who simply doesn\u2019t get charged. With its straightforward relationship between people and profits, Craigslist is an important reminder that platforms don\u2019t have to turn their users into data<\/a> in order to make money.<\/p>\n

Keep it simple, stupid<\/h2>\n

Change and disruption aren\u2019t just buzzwords for Big Tech, they\u2019re gospel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Facebook constantly tweaks its design, rolling out changes to parts of its user base to test reactions<\/a>. If you don\u2019t update your platform<\/a> and roll out new features, users will get bored and go elsewhere \u2013 so the thinking goes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Craigslist never bought into this. If you compare screengrabs of Craigslist\u2019s homepage from 2008 and 2018, you\u2019ll struggle to find major differences.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t quite right to say that Craigslist hasn\u2019t changed at all. Categories for ads have come and gone, while features like uploading photos and integrating Google Maps have been added. But on the whole, Craigslist has remained profoundly stable, and when I interviewed Craigslist users, I heard over and over a fondness for the website\u2019s bare-bones aesthetic.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Craigslist\u2019s interface has remained remarkably stable through the years.<\/span>
\ndennizn\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As one interviewee explained, \u201cIt\u2019s a simple interface, it\u2019s easy to use. I don\u2019t know, I guess just that it feels like the old internet a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead of \u201cmove fast and break things,\u201d Craigslist\u2019s mantra could be \u201ckeep it simple, stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anonymity isn\u2019t always a problem<\/h2>\n

One of the biggest differences between Craigslist and its ever<\/a>–increasing<\/a> list<\/a> of<\/a> competitors<\/a> is anonymity.<\/p>\n

When Craigslist first went online, norms around anonymity were different. Most people used pseudonyms or handles in the chat rooms and message boards of the early internet<\/a>. Over time, norms shifted so that anonymity became suspicious<\/a> and \u201creal\u201d names<\/a> became expected, if not required.<\/p>\n

Craigslist\u2019s anonymity policy has become the main driver for its reputation as sleazy<\/a> and weird<\/a>. When users are anonymous, there\u2019s no accountability, or so the logic goes. And yes, there have been terrible incidents of violence<\/a> and fraud<\/a> on Craigslist.<\/p>\n

But there have also been crimes and cons committed on Facebook<\/a>, eBay<\/a> and LinkedIn<\/a>, even though those sites require identification and profiles. Furthermore, what usually goes unsaid is that platforms need users to be identifiable<\/a> to sell targeted ads.<\/p>\n

When I interviewed Craigslist users about anonymity, I heard a powerful defense of it from people of color and poor people who might otherwise be discriminated<\/a> against. Being anonymous also meant they weren\u2019t alerting friends and neighbors that they were selling items or looking for apartments, which gave them a greater sense of security and privacy.<\/p>\n

Craigslist\u2019s policies can\u2019t necessarily be imported to other platforms, and we might not want everything on the internet to look like it\u2019s from the 1990s. But the steady march to a hyper-commercialized internet where users trade their data for online community isn\u2019t inevitable. Craigslist serves as a powerful reminder that some ideas from the early web are worth holding on to.<\/p>\n

[Insight, in your inbox each day.<\/em> You can get it with The Conversation\u2019s email newsletter<\/a>.]\"The<\/p>\n

Jessa Lingel<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessa Lingel, University of Pennsylvania Fake news. Online surveillance. Phishing scams. Biased algorithms. It\u2019s easy to be cynical about the internet, and harder to remember a time when being online felt less commercial and more democratic. But there was a period when websites didn\u2019t rely on user data for profit margins, when people still viewed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293],"tags":[2341,7680,1870,473,483,619,549,3109],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19695"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19702,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19695\/revisions\/19702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}