Craigslist Zen

I’ve just spent the better part of three weeks organizing the more tangible, mundane details of my life, using Craigslist for every single detail.

Since we got here about a month ago from Toronto, I’ve used the site to research the city’s neighbourhoods and narrow down potential living areas. I scanned and found an apartment around Commercial Drive. Since we left most of our things in Toronto, I diligently sifted through the hundreds of pieces posted daily and picked up all of my new-to-me furniture from a wide variety of friendly souls, everywhere between Richmond and Langley, thankful that their old stuff is going to a good home and they got a few bucks in the exchange. I found an almost-new set of skis, and the guy who’s moving back to Korea and had to get rid of them threw in a ski bag and some gloves for free. Woohoo! We hired a ‘man with truck’ who’d posted his phone number on Craigslist to move all our new things; I met him a couple hours after I called on Saturday and he helped us move our stuff and unload some boxes into our new place.

I asked him how his experience with the site has been and he said he posted his services simply because he has a pickup truck, has some free time on the weekends, and likes meeting people. He says that now it keeps him so busy and with enough tax-free cash in his pocket that it’s supporting all of his home renovations and a few leisure activities (the ones he’s got time for when he’s not responding to calls for help to move oversize furniture).

So, at some point this site, and my interactions with it, has moved beyond a merely interesting (and some times perverse) classifieds site and into an online utopia, worth reflecting and emulating. To note:

No listing fees for individuals. No finders fees. No taxes. No logins. No passwords. No promotional emails. No advertisements. No CSS. No cookies. There may be a few pervs and roguish types lurking about, but again the user experience is simplistically brilliant – ignore them, and click away (or delete the message out of your inbox). Even the error message is sweetly simple and cute.

Consumers aren’t really used to getting things for free. We expect a hitch. We’re suspiciously pessimistic. Except on Craigslist. On Craigslist, I’ve fairly assured that Craig (or the 21 or so other employees there) will probably never decide to charge me for posting my used coffee table or for finding Mr. Right, given they’re already leaving millions on the table as it is. It’s one of the few true caveat venditor experiences we can have these days (the seller being Craig and his list, not necessarily the 17 million people posting ads each month).

So, some more takeaways to consider. They demonstrate consistency. Responsiveness. Understatement and modesty. If we applied these pillar Craigslist virtues to, say:

- the Department of Motor Vehicles, where people who line up and wait patiently for a license could instead prepare their own photos and fill out their own forms online at home instead of standing in line for a really long time. Then, we’d email the Department and let them know when we’d be dropping by to pick our new license up, and maybe share a coffee with the person when we got there.

- A computer manufacturer could offer the most compelling features and system configurations because the million or so people who ordered a machine before you would’ve commented and edited the services to the point of perfection. Then, the company would willingly buy used parts back from us when we’re done (they’d have to pick them up, too).

- A university could offer free courses to all students just out of high school, and then charge corporations for retraining their staff (which, since Shift is Happening, we’re apparently going to have to bet retrained with greater frequency anyway).

The world would be a better place.  And on an aside, I’ve now got a new site to distract me from Facebook. Join me.