The writer mocks Craigslist’s standard of English (and it is dreadful) but I recall many auto classifieds in years past with ‘RUNS GOOD’ as the hook. Newsprint isn’t a guarantee of Shakespeare-caliber copy.
As with all ivory-tower liberals, the writer either ignores or resents the economic aspect of the Craigslist phenomenon. Nowhere in the piece do the words ‘cost,’ ‘expense,’ or ‘price’ appear. How many thousands, even millions, of times did papers abuse their monopoly by charging exorbitant rates for classifieds? Have they ever considered that the rise of Craigslist was a direct reaction to being gouged?
Admittedly, the writer is relying on anecdotal evidence but he is also ignoring the very empirical evidence of circulation. Readers have abandoned classifieds because they have abandoned the newspaper for ideological reasons.
Well, at least the print ads got the verb tense and subject-verb agreement right. Joe's Craigslist example ("run good when last run") showed a seller oblivious to the past tense of the irregular verb.
Newspaper print circulation figures show the NY Times as the only paper whose daily digital circulation exceeds the print circulation.