Greg's Corner

Craigslist is a billion dollar company, but should they be?

If you’re unfamiliar with the AIM Group, they describe themselves as “a world-class business intelligence consultancy focused on digital marketplaces and classified advertising.” Or as they’ve been described by some, an industry watchdog for the online classifieds industry. They once famously called craigslist a ‘cesspool of crime’ and we’re unapologetic about it. But let’s face it, they were right. However, the AIM Group has released a new report that shows craigslist may have broken the old adage of ‘crime doesn’t pay.’

In a recently issued press release, the AIM Group has announced a report that says craigslist is now a billion dollar company. Now some may scoff at such a paltry amount of revenue when it’s compared to companies like Apple and Facebook but to keep the amount in perspective, craigslist only has 50 employees. For an equivalent of a modestly successful ‘mom and pop’ business, craigslist had done all right for themselves.

But the success has not come without controversy. It almost seems like craigslist has reinvested little of that money back into the infrastructure of their own website especially when it comes to user safety. Without even delving into craigslist’s questionable past of facilitating human trafficking, the number of violent acts that have been perpetrated against craigslist users has been unsettling over the past two decades. The fact that a number of murderers have been branded by the press as the ‘Craigslist Killer’ over the years can attest to that. It’s still no different today as just in the past day there have been headlines mentioning craigslist about scams, opiate dealing, and stolen goods. This is an addition to the almost daily headlines of robbery and assault.

With all that purported money you would think that craigslist could invest in some site moderation to help keep scammers and robbers off of their site in order to better protect their users. Instead, it seems like they’d rather spend it on lavish homes in ritzy New York City neighborhoods.

Craigslist can continue to play off their ‘We’re the little guy’ reputation all they want when in reality they’re just another greedy corporation.