What Craigslist has is what economists call "positive network externalities" or network effects. Which just means that it's a really valuable service because tons of other people use it. Buyers go there because lots of people are selling, and lots of people selling go there because they know lots of buyers visit the site.
This is the perennial frustration with the immense power of the network effect, a power that all start-ups live and die on.
Unfortunately, us humans have a hard time banding together and forming enough consensus to 'jump ship' enmass to a new service. Especially, when the a lack of 'innovative features' on a given service barely registers on the pain scale.
Look at the internets SOPA protest, the entire integrity of the internet was threatened and we did something about it. But how can you generate enough support around: we need better mash-ups to view craigslist postings!
So, what are we supposed to do? Seems like the only options are:
A) destroy the network effect with legislation. (How is this good?)
B) select another company The Board feels has a better platform, crush CL with legislation, and establish the new company with legislation. (How is this good!?!)
Why the references to legislation? The free market can fix this IF the Craigslist experience really is bad. You might not be able to grow organically like Craigslist did but it is totally possible. Pay listers to post on your site. Offer something unique to the listers Craigslist can't.
I presume that is what we are talking about, when people here complain that nobody has been able to defeat Craigslist and that Craigslist ought to die (in so many words).
No legislation! We aren't supposed to do anything other than decide which services to freely use and not. Our collective actions make the market dynamic, and if some company is winning and you don't like it, don't resort to violence (legislation).
We need legislation to stop people from abusing legislation. Err.
The solution suggested in "Crossing the Chasm" is not a frontal assault, but to completely dominate a niche. A frontal assault is impossible, and no one ever succeeds. Microsoft did something that IBM didn't care too much about initially. Google started out doing something that was tangential for Microsoft. Facebook did not go head to head with ads and search with Google initially either.
