It sounds strange to consider if you "should have to" when buying something. I wanted the previous model macbook pro, so I bought one and I didn't really care what behavior I was encouraging.
Failing at something doesn't make a person a failure or else we would all be failures. Do you really thing extra compassion towards a person contemplating suicide is such a bad thing? Or is being 100% correct in your words more important? I know we're on a message board, but OP is a real person with real feelings in a pretty fragile state right now.
I could have been clearer, I suppose - of course I'm not saying that the OP was a failure, but I was saying that they failed at the things they attempted, i.e. software engineering, and platitudes that gloss over this aren't helpful, since the cognitive dissonance and load will often make the mental issues worse.
I am a bit shocked at the comments people are making in this thread. Someone who is acutely anxious and depressed about their business challenges should never be told that they are a failure and that we don't care about their emotional distress from their business problems.
I care that this guy exists. Even in his darkest hours, I want him to continue living. This trouble he's going through will pass. He is still a healthy human being, whether or not his business fails.
There is so much stuff left for him to experience in his life. Empathetic humans like myself must remind him that even if he loses all his money, he can always rebuild.
Yeah, it's pretty upsetting to see the lack of compassion in here. I think it is just harder for some to imagine real people on the other side of HN comments (or any online comments). If we were all in a room talking to each other, instead of a message-board, then we would see far more empathy and kindness.
I'm glad you're here to be a kind and compassionate voice.
Same to you :) Business doesn't need to be a zero sum game. We can all help each other out if the stars align properly.
I remember back when the banks made loans to businesses, and the business owner was really only responsible for daily operations. It was the bank's money to lose. If the business didn't work out, it was the bank's loss, not really the CEO's.
Now the risk is all on the founder. It is a digital gold rush where the founder must provide their own shovel and pan, and if they don't find gold quickly enough, then they'll starve.
It doesn't need to be like this. You can walk away from the gold mine.
More plastic than a super market does? And can you not just recycle the plastic containers?
If the world switched to services like Blue Apron/Hello Fresh/etc. rather than shopping in super markets, I wonder if we would overall produce more or less pollution? Super markets use a lot of energy and have a lot of waste.
Super markets certainly have their problems, for reasons you've said. However, you can choose not to put your groceries in any plastic from the supermarket, if you wish. I have done exactly that for a while now and it's easily doable, you just have to be a little choosy about what you buy.
If people switched to shopping at local farmer's markets - so food wouldn't be shipped around at all - we would produce much less pollution and have much sustainable agriculture than either of those options.
Local agriculture usually costs a lot more energy and land than large scale agriculture or agriculture in a climate that is best suited for the plant. The transportation costs are a rounding error for many products. Organic products are particularly terrible in this respect.
It's the softer plastics that are sometimes harder to recycle. Hard containers are pretty easy, but some places can't accept their ubiquitous plastic bags with one green onion in them (not kidding on that point).
I would guess that the intention of the feature was not just to give users results quicker, but to also make them feel as if Google search is very fast. So it may have been effective even if you didn't click any links.
Craigslist is one of the best pages on the internet. It's functional, it loads fast, it doesn't have a stack built of buzzwords and bullshit. It works on every device everywhere. I mean, what business does a page have being megabytes and megabytes if it's gonna display a couple bytes of text? None. It doesn't matter if it's "technically free" these days, that's just bad design and engineering.
I agree with you, but I still think they could benefit from at least having an app that loads their website. Craigslist is represented in app-stores by unofficial 3rd party apps that aren't very good. Users may have bad experiences with those apps, which Craigslist may want to prevent or control.
Some people might think (incorrectly) that their lack of presence in app stores means the company isn't focused on mobile or that their platform is not intended to be used on mobile.
There are benefits to having a mobile app over just a mobile website, such as mobile notifications, consistent/better authentication, being featured on users' home screens (next to LetGo, OfferUp, etc.) instead of hidden away in a web browser app. I would think that Craigslist would find their users to be more engaged with an app.
Craiglist design actually sucks. When I first used it, the whole thing was almost revolting from design perspective. Where some people see simplicity, others see utter lack of modernity, friendliness and affordability. I still can't get some of my relative to use it (they ask me to post on their behalf!). Before you cite page counts, revenues and unique users, think about how many people are not using it despite the fact everyone has heard about it and everyone has a need to sell something on and off. Amazon UX is almost complete opposite of craiglist but is usable by much much wider audience.
I mean, we can't prove who "isn't" using it. We can prove that millions and millions of people are using it and seem to be content with it; we can provide anecdotal accounts (including by many people in this thread) that the simplicity and straightforwardness and consistency is what brings them back to the site. I can tell you that everyone I know looks at Craigslist when they're looking for apartments. But I get that you don't like it; I just think you need to acknowledge that's a preference, rather than an objective fact.
I use CL to advertise for my manufacturing business. It delivers 95% of our customers to our online store, and it does it for a monthly advertising budget of $270. We have $15-30k monthly revenue from these customers.
I like websites that don't change. I can come back to Craigslist once or twice a year, year after year, and it's exactly what I remembered. No hunting around, no discovering new gestures and behaviors. It's simple, obvious, and it for what it does, it works.
Just imagine the number of people that would immediately reject craigslist if it got a clever 'redesign.' It has worked the same way is forever and there are people who are not incredibly computer literate who rely on it. If craigslist moved as fast as facebook then in my opinion I think it would have been already been replaced.
The mobile site is really good. Hell, even the regular site has incredible usability and is very lightweight. It might not look as pretty as GumTree, but it's very usable.
There may be notable services missing, but I wouldn't say it is an oversight. It seems the most popular or well-known services are covered and not all of them have referral links. Sure, there is room for improvement, but it seems to me that the creator put this together in good faith.
