[ojbyrne]

You're not considering the second order effects. Multiple competitors appear to compete with craigslist (either head to head or picking off the most attractive niches). Market grows, profits fall.

Are we better off? Just look at the service. Before we had tiny little text ads in the back pages of newspapers, now we have pictures, directions, the ability to search and sort, etc... clearly the service is better.

And I think once you take into account the second order effects, and the fact that there's significantly less friction around transactions, you end up with a larger total market, and probably close to a comparable number of jobs.

[jbooth]

There's no way that there's a comparable level of jobs. You know how many people the newspaper industry used to employ nationwide? Craigslist had substantially less than 100 last I heard (maybe they've grown a bit), pushing a way larger volume of classifieds, without any expensive correspondents or any of that news crap.

As the original commentator stated, bringing their jobs back would be silly make-work now that they're obsolete, nobody's suggesting that. But it does present a problem.

[ojbyrne]

Kijiji, AirBnB, Cars.com, etc. etc. See http://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-cr...

I think you didn't grasp the phrase "second order effects."

[jbooth]

There should really be a Godwin-like rule when it comes to accusing someone of not knowing how to read.

How many people does AirBnB employ, again? I've never even heard of Kijiji.

Add up all those companies and you're around the level of a single 100k city newspaper. Maybe 2-3 of them. Did you know that newspapers actually employ a lot of people who's whole job is to get stuff printed out on paper and delivered to everyone's door?

Again, nobody's arguing for going back to stupid inefficient gray-paper classifieds. They're just pointing out that efficiency has eliminated more jobs than it's created this time around (see also manufacturing), and there doesn't seem to be an obvious next step for those unemployed if they can't learn programming.

[AppSec]

This can be taken to an extreme.

How many corporations make/made printing presses? How many corps make/made network devices, monitors, keyboards, mice, smartphones.

You can go third to fourth order all day long and you'll end up with the same statement:

The only thing that is constant is change. People have to be willing to change and willing to learn or they will be left behind.

[r00fus]

As the friction of the transaction decreases, the "jobs" are the less the "classified owners/workers" and now people who can make their living buying/selling on the far-more-fluid craigslist.