Craigslist is a magnet for scammers and oddballs but it did do us all a great service and exacted a huge measure of revenge by undercutting the classified ad sections of newspapers.
The classifieds were stupid expensive, even compared to display ads, hence the often cryptic abbreviations, and they were the financial lifeblood of many papers.
Price gouging and monopolies are ugly things (as Obamacare has demonstrated) and the smug editors and columnists at these papers got their just desserts as they watched the business model go up in smoke.
I would, honestly, pay a reasonable amount for a newspaper with no advertising at all to eliminate obvious and ongoing influence by advertisers. For example, papers will report on bad pothole repair or slow mail but they won’t touch stories on bad service at car dealerships. Gee, I wonder why?
Anyway, papers abused their financial and First Amendment roles and made a rod for their own back.
the smug editors and columnists at these papers got their just desserts as they watched the business model go up in smoke.
papers will report on bad pothole repair or slow mail but they won’t touch stories on bad service at car dealerships. Gee, I wonder why?
One of the "truthiest" posts I've seen on FR, especially the first two statements (schadenfreude on the second one in particular).
I still remember one article from years ago in a small town newspaper about a local car dealer who was a psychopath, prone to literally flip out and kick people's @$$es. They reported on court proceedings for an aggravated battery charge by using his full name, including his middle name, in an attempt to obscure who had actually committed the crime (he was convicted - no allegedly to it).