[simonsarris]

> The social network hasn't had any interesting feature added to it in the last couple of years.

I actually found some great rugs (owners did not know what they had!) and furniture on the FB marketplace. Much better finds than on craigslist, and easier to verify that the seller is a human.

[jdfellow]

I'll second the notion of Facebook Marketplace being a good new feature. You can even pay the seller in-app, which is handy.

[DanTheManPR]

I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist.

It's an odd platform. They have a lot of great features for outreach and discovery of local events and groups of people, leveraged by the strong network effect. For contact with local groups of people with similar interests, and for planning events, for group communication, it is an effective tool and one that has enriched my life in substantial ways.

The one thing that I really hate is the front page feed. It was probably a great business decision on their part to emphasize microblogging, as it definitely increased engagement in the platform. It also turned everyone into memelords who just re-share funny cat pictures, pyramid schemes and incendiary political propaganda. I tried just filtering that out with the "see fewer posts like this", but I turns out that people just don't really post anything but image macros and articles anymore.

[drdeadringer]

> I've been surprised by how good Facebook's local classified ads implementation is, I've been having better success with it than Craigslist.

If you've tried it, how do you think Facebook's classifieds compare to NextDoor's classifieds?

[Spooky23]

Agreed.

Craigslist was tainted by the unsavory element of prostitution and stolen goods and isn’t a resource that I seek out. Facebook marketplaces seem like what eBay was in the 90s.

[magduf]

If I'm buying a used piece of furniture or whatever, I don't give a shit about prostitution going on elsewhere on the site.

What's really hurt Craigslist is all the scammers. You can't post anything of value on there without some scammer responding and telling you they're going to send you a cashier's check and have a personal assistant pick it up.

You don't have this problem at all on Facebook AFAICT. When someone responds to your ad on Facebook Marketplace, it's a real person who actually wants to buy your old junk.

[Spooky23]

The scammers aren’t there because of prostitution, both categories are there because Craigslist attracts unsavory parties and does little or nothing to police them.

[magduf]

No, that's not correct at all. The difference is that Craigslist has no real accounts. When you get a response to your CL ad, even if the responder has a CL account, you don't see this, you just get a text message or phone call or email. With FB, everything is through the site because of the way it's centralized, and you can see the account and full name of the person who's contacting you. On CL, it's trivial for scammers to respond to ads with automated programs, but on FB they'd have to create a real-looking fake account in your area, complete with pictures, some kind of history, etc., which is a far greater undertaking.

In short, the formats of the sites make all the difference. CL was created to preserve anonymity and not be a centralized social network, but that feature is also its undoing because it facilitates scamming.

[reaperducer]

Craigslist was tainted by the unsavory element of prostitution and stolen goods and isn’t a resource that I seek out.

IME, Facebook Marketplace is far from free of scams and stolen merchandise. That's why some people call it Fencebook.

[cf498]

>IME, Facebook Marketplace is far from free of scams and stolen merchandise. That's why some people call it Fencebook.

Thats not a new problem though, is it? I dare you to buy used car parts on ebay.