[clicks]

That is one interesting piece. I highly encourage reading it all, as well as the articles linked within.

I had not been aware of this 'sharing movement', and how this perspective was being force-fed by some SV folks. And now that I've found about it I find this to be very off-putting, I was expecting better from SV.

The BI article on TaskRabbit (http://www.businessinsider.com/confessions-of-a-task-rabbit-...) I think nicely outlines the problems with this wave of 'sharing' startups:

    The whole thing about TaskRabbit, again it's "neighbors 
    helping neighbors," as if my health and safety don't 
    matter, as if I'm willing to put up with whatever you 
    dish out no matter what.  And it's required that 
    TaskRabbits always have a smile on their faces.  You 
    know what, I'm not going to smile at you while you lie. 
    It's a health factor, it's a safety risk.  I don't want 
    to get covered in cat shit and if I do, I should know 
    about it and get paid for it. 

    There really is an element of disregard for the 
    Rabbits. Then the email I got from TaskRabbit about 
    being unprofessional — my answer to that is, if you 
    actively suppress what you actually foster, it is 
    abuse. Then people will figure out that they can lie 
    and manipulate the TaskRabbits to get what they want. 

    BI: Do TaskRabbits ever meet?

    Not so much.  I've met a couple of them because either 
    I've posted tasks myself or I was assigned a task that 
    involved another TaskRabbit.  That's part of the 
    strategy of TaskRabbit — to keep us apart from one 
    another.  We can't message each other on the website. 
    The only way you get to meet another TaskRabbit is if 
    you post a task, and I think they do this to keep us 
    apart because they don't want us fixing the process. 
    They don't want us unionizing.  They don't want us to 
    get together and say an Ikea run is $50 minimum. 

    If it's a $25 job, how much will TaskRabbit take?

    Here's how it works.  I wish I had access to their back 
    end numbers.  Certainly a task that costs, let's say, 
    $30 or more, the markup is actually about 70%.  At a 
    lower price point the markup is smaller and it could be 
    as low as 15%.  For example, if I bid $20 on a grocery 
    run, the poster will probably pay a price of $23.  So 
    that is fair.

    But as the price goes up, so does the cut.  And I know 
    once you hit about $30 for the task, the markup is 70%.

Craigslist is more of a 'sharing economy' company than this -- it gives you the option to directly interact with people about jobs... and products... and apartments.. and so much more... for free. The rent-seeking-type sharing economy startups of http://peers.org are simply VC-funded, sophisticated, money-making schemes. At the end of the day, money is less fairly distributed in society because of these "sharing" startups, and I think the fact that they seemingly deny this is particularly shameful.

[wes-exp]

Be careful about making the flawed assumption that economics is a zero-sum game. That if craigslist earned money, it must somehow be stealing it.

Actually, the opposite is true. I think craigslist is so focused on being barebones and profit-free that it actually is doing a disservice to the economy. It took a lot of pressure for Craigslist to add a basic feature, maps integration, and it only did so recently. If craigslist wanted to really contribute to society, it should try earning a bit more money and using it to hire people to make the service better for end-users. Everyone wins.

Middle-men are not necessarily evil just because they earn a profit. A genuinely useful middle-man can benefit both himself as well as the other parties in the transaction. Again, don't fall into the trap of zero-sum thinking.

[awakeasleep]

Craigslist is an enormous benefit to people in general. The economy is only valuable in its benefits to people.

If any other business can figure out a way to provide a better value service, they're free to start at any time.

Man, saying craigslist does a disservice to the economy sure rankles. I feel like a similar argument might be that peace does a disservice to the economy, too. And imagine what a lack of disease would do to the healthcare economy.

[wes-exp]

Sorry if I was being unclear. I wasn't trying to say craigslist does a disservice to the economy in general; it's clearly beneficial and I don't want to diminish that. Rather, I think that its attitude of being barebones and avoiding profit is doing a disservice, by holding it back from becoming a better, more useful service.

[jiggy2011]

If that was the case , one would expect a for profit craigslist to have dominated by now.

[Natsu]

Two-sided marketplaces are notoriously difficult to get going. Craigslist benefits extensively from network effects, and they're good.

You can't beat them by being just a little bit better.

[jonnathanson]

Small nitpick, but to be clear: Craigslist is a for-profit company, and has been registered as such since 1999. The job listings cost money to post. That's where the site is believed to make most of its revenue.

The .org domain, and the fact that a lot of users haven't experienced posting a job, create the popular misperception that CL is a nonprofit. To be fair, it's a strange kind of company, and I'm not sure if profit is its overriding goal, per se. But it's a for-profit enterprise. It may be the most laid-back for-profit I've ever seen, though. :)

[temphn]

They have, just on a category-by-category basis. Many of the sharing economy companies are included.

http://cdixon.org/2012/11/23/some-problems-are-so-hard-they-...