The first time I discovered Craigslist, I looked at it with sadness, anger, and mild dismay. There’s just something about sites that are outdated and seem to have been built in the 90s and then never updated that just irks me. Quite simply, I find it to be insulting to every major technological innovation in the last decade. And to me, that’s a big deal.
I remember building websites in the 90s. My first website was a simple text-based collection of pages on the now defunct Geocities. It was a time of static content, where pages filled with text simply linked to yet more pages filled with text. There were also all the weird images; do you remember seeing the flashing ‘under construction’ and ‘welcome to my site’ animated GIFs? Or, the fad with having an online “guest book” that people were invited to sign? I have been there and like every other web developer in the 90s I have built similar websites.
But the thing is, and this represents my greatest pet peeve with these websites today, is that I don’t still design websites like it’s the 90s. It’s insulting to HTML5, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, and all the dynamic scripting languages out there that some people still design these disgustingly planned services.
By no means am I attacking “simple” websites. Simple designs are beautiful and ironically are very challenging to implement perfectly. When a company hits that perfect stroke of simple design genius, it shows and is the talk of the Internet.
The problem I have with Craigslist is that it’s not a simple service. They haven’t built a simple website. That’s a common misconception that I have the distinct displeasure of too commonly seeing.
Craigslist isn’t simple. It’s lazy. The company, in its approach and philosophy towards building a website, is inherently lazy. There’s really no other way to describe it.
With its current Alexa rank of 36, Craigslist serves over twenty billion a month. Make no mistake, this isn’t because users love the website’s 90s retro look or its simplicity.
The real reason Craigslist can be a success with its mediocre philosophies is because of competition. Or, rather the lack of any. Can you name another classifieds site? I only know of Kijiji and every time I go there, I stumble upon half a dozen parked domains as I struggle my way through that wacky spelling.
The only reason Craigslist is still on top because its only competition is a site called Kijiji. Stop saying that it’s because Craigslist is simple, nice, or has a really cool hip owner.
The mere fact that Craigslist is successful should be damn scary and terrifying to all of us. It means no one’s innovating in the online Classifieds field and that’s not a great fact. Simply put, the state of the online classifieds field today is eerily reminiscent of the mobile field a few years ago before Apple’s iPhone caused everyone else to get up and start innovating.
That’s all I want. That’s all I desperately wish for – some website that rises up and knocks Craigslist off, or at the very least gives it a good fight and a run for its money. Is that too much to ask for?
I don’t know what the website is, how it will look or work, or any other details. I only know it’s not going to be called Kijijijiji, or whatever that site is called.