Craiglist == Walmart? Heh. No.

Adrian Holovaty mentioned over at E-Media Tidbits something interesting. Seems Anil Dash has responded to a column by Tim Redmond comparing Craigslist to Wal-Mart. Heh.

First, some of Redmond's original piece:

But Craig still annoys me, and here's why:

Over and over in his brief speech, he talked about "building community." He acted as if Craigslist was some sort of nonprofit with lofty goals and he a humble servant of the people who wants only to help improve human communications.

The problem with that is simple: When Craig comes to town (and he's coming to just about every town in the nation soon), the existing community institutions – say, the locally owned weekly newspaper – have a very hard time competing. In many ways, he's like a Wal-Mart – yeah, landlords get cheaper real estate ads, and consumers find some bargains, but the money all goes out of town. And he puts nothing back into the community: He doesn't, for example, hire reporters or serve as a community watchdog.

Yes, a bit bitter, but it wasn't snarky bitter like most bloggers. It was the worse kind of bitter, that of a journalist clinging to the past like a whiny little brat being dragged through the mall, told his allowance is only $500 week instead of $700 a week.

Dash puts it better, though. He wrote:

And live up to the standard you've set, Tim. You say "And he puts nothing back into the community: He doesn't, for example, hire reporters or serve as a community watchdog." Craig spends hours every day tracking down scammers and shady characters in communities he doesn't even live in. He turns down more money in buyout offers every year than a typical alt weekly has earned in profits during its entire existence. But somehow I can still go to the SFBG homepage and see a tired, unpersuasive, preaching-to-the-choir rant about how Bush should be impeached. Even the people who are in complete agreement can find a better version of the same thing in any one of dozens of left-wing blogs. Where's that deep pool of resources you're investing back into your community?

I asked the management at the paper I worked at to approach Craig, to work with him, and to learn from him. I'm not sure it ever happened; It's just one of the reasons I'm glad to be doing the work I do now. But the worst thing a journalist, or any person who creates media, can ever be is uncurious. The defensiveness I see in the SF Bay Guardian, and in many similar papers around the country, indicates a powerfully uncurious and defensive reaction. It's an embarassment to me as a liberal that people who claim to share my values would want to undermine someone who gives a community a place to connect, for free, about the most important things in their life. A place to live, someone to love, a cheaper way to get the necessities of life. People are passionate about Craigslist even if (like me) they rarely use it because it's an online community that hasn't let down its promise in the way that too many local newspapers have.

Ding. Ding. I think we have a winner.

I recommend stopping over to read the whole Dash piece, though. He brings up other good points about why Newmark is trouncing the newspapers - it's not because he's a giant behemoth like Wal-Mart. That's for certain.

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