Craigslist's one goal in the world is to make a profit. That's it. Everything else comes secondary. If they decide that providing users a service will help them accomplish this, then have them provide a good service (which they do). However, they don't owe anything to any businesses or even any users. If users don't like this, let them go to an alternative. Welcome to capitalism, where the users decide what product they want. (Now if you don't like what the majority of users are deciding, then that's another issue altogether.)
Craigslist is a privately-owned company and was actually a non-profit at one point. In the past Craig Newmark has talked about Craigslist as a tool for community organization and so on. If Craigslist were 100% profit-driven I think it could have made a lot more money off of its huge user base.
That's actually an interesting enough theory that I'd love to test.
My guess is that the site is generally mediocre enough that it would be hard to get more people to open their wallets except for select listing types.
If they charged to view the listings for example, I'd wager that very few people would bother and they'd lose their network effect.
My guess is that they're getting about as much money as they can without offending too many people as preservation of their user network is highest priority, as it is what allows them to keep charging money for the few things they charge for currently.
Just by putting un-offsensive elements such as a single Adsense box on each site they should be able to generate serious additional revenue without experiencing that much of critique. With that kind of traffic and legitimate profile, the un-intrusive revenue options are endless. Just additional fees for highlighted listings, dynamic pricing for a slower decay of a posting, etc. But the beauty of Craigslist is its absolute no-frills approach and consistency over years and years. Reminds me a bit on the success of Drudge. Similarly weathering all storms by concentrating on content and simplicity to the extreme.
I was naively thinking of charging users more money to increase revenue, and while you've pointed out a few very viable ways that they could easily get more wallets open, the real gold mine is likely ad revenue that nobody would bat an eye at.
The targeting/CPM would likely be fairly low, but by sheer volume alone, they'd rake it in I suspect.
I believe that the CPM for ads on Craigslist would be higher than it is for Reddit or Facebook. The key is that people browsing Craigslist are usually there to buy something rather than seeking free entertainment. Advertisers really value audiences who are ready to buy a product in their market.
You talk as if there is perfect market choice - that if a majority of customers want something, it will happen. In the real world, there is not perfect market choice. There are many factors which make it impossible to have perfect market choice. We are probably stuck with Craigslist and LinkedIn for a while, and for the most part, we are stuck with the decisions that their executives make.
It's true that if they do something highly awful, then that might create enough demand for a competitor to take over. But it would have to be a high degree of awfulness to overcome their existing momentum. There are many shades of not-quite-awful, where those companies can make decisions with market impunity.
So considering that we're kinda stuck with those guys, I think the question becomes, why shouldn't we complain if they are doing something that we don't like? Doesn't matter who owes who what. It's our world, we should try to improve it.
You should complain if you really want to, that's part of the market force.
I think perfect market choice is a funny idea. Why would anyone assume the market would function on such a limited plane of understanding, that all you had to do was poll people, you could trust their verbal response, and decide that's what the market should do?
People very often do things in contrast with what they say, even what they believe consciously. There is so much more at play than what people would "vote" for in the sense of a "perfect market choice".
Save it for econ class. A company's goal is to build a sustainable profit generating engine. To allow this, it needs to play a constructive part in the marketplace and community.
A company does not need to provide a constructive part of the community to achieve their goal of profitability... they just have to provide something that some segment of the population is willing to pay for, or build in a degree of lock-in that guarantees continued profits.
For example, It's probably fair to say that Monsanto is not a constructive part of the marketplace and community, but they sure do have a sustainable profit generating engine.
Edit - if you're going to downvote, how about some discussion as to how this comment does not add to the conversation... since I'm sure there was some other reason for the downvote other than not agreeing with me :)
And if they're not a constructive part of the community, the community has every right (I think it's practically an obligation) to berate them for it.
Just having a business plan and making money should not protect you from criticism or absolve behavior detrimental to the general community! Yes, legally Craigslist has no obligations; that's why nobody's litigating. I argue that morally (at least from a utilitarian standpoint), Craigslist does have an obligation to play nice. And so I welcome critical blog posts and bad publicity.
Oh, I agree 100% that if the community disagrees with the behavior of an entity they they have every right to berate them. And if a company behaves poorly enough, it will open the floodgates for competitors and revenue loss (i.e. GoDaddy during SOPA probably lost an appreciable number of customers).
That being said, in this specific case I think that whether or not there is a moral obligation to let a third party scrape and mix-in your data is very debatable (given that Craigslist does not provide an API).
Sure, people should play nice. And some may interpret playing nice as 'don't scrape other people's stuff for your own startup'. Or at least don't be suprised when they get pissed ;)
You could take tabaco companies, much of alcohol, gambling, TV and other addictive "entertainments", and to the extend that they are enterprises (if not legal), much of the arms trade, mafia / organized crime, illegal drugs trade, and modern banking, as not providing net social benefits. While generating profits.
Lets get to basics, If product was providing value and doesn't anymore there will be attrition to userbase and that is the gist of it. It is also the foundation of wealth building and whatnot. Ancillary benefits, as APIs are, help shallow out the curve of obsolescence or even grow the product sometimes if cards are played right, but that is that...
Not only do I entirely agree with this, but the title of the blog post makes it seems like he was acting less out of a concern for free speech and more out of a desire for attention. "Hey guys, look at me! I'm giving up money for free speech!"
Calling this a free speech issue is like saying that Reddit inhibits free speech by preventing you from posting personal information online. Not every act of asking you to change or not say something is a violation of free speech.
Actually, a lot of modern art IS intellectual games; not spirit or aesthetics. Look at the readymades of Marcel Duchamp (early 20th century). And these intellectual games apply to modern literature and music as well.
note: if you read one part of this, read the last paragraph.
"I paint objects as I think them not as I see them." - Pablo Picasso
"Art is what you can get away with." - Andy Warhol
I do not buy the "this isn't art, I can do this. art requires skill" train of thought. firstly, if we appreciate skill then we are not appreciating art. we are appreciating a craft. to appreciate art we must appreciate creativity. who's the artist: the engineer or the architect? the engineer has more skill, but i'd say the architect.
Secondly, let's assume that the "art requires skill" argument is correct. hence, a white painting is not art. but then what's the converse. is photorealistic painting (when a painting looks as though it were a photograph) the best art? because it contains the best skill at imitating reality? because I would say Michelangelo or Rembrandt are far superior to any photorealistic painter (try to name one).
Lastly, here's an interesting spin on modern art: it has a greater effect on you than regular art does. You've probably had a lot of conversations about modern art but little about real art. And it has a greater emotional effect on people (generally anger or disdain) than regular art, which usually leads to boredom. After all, I bet there are tons of blog posts on modern art like this one. I doubt there are many on the Old Masters. Modern art challenges us, makes us think more, and make use talk more.
>is photorealistic painting (when a painting looks as though it were a photograph) the best art? because it contains the best skill at imitating reality?
Imitating reality is not the only skill. I can look at e.g. Seurat and see that it takes more skill to produce something that looks like that than to do a photorealistic version of the same scene.
>Lastly, here's an interesting spin on modern art: it has a greater effect on you than regular art does. You've probably had a lot of conversations about modern art but little about real art. And it has a greater emotional effect on people (generally anger or disdain) than regular art, which usually leads to boredom
If art required craft, that would not imply that art was reducible to craft. I don't even know where you get the premise that art and craft must be mutually exclusive.
I don't see why an engineer cannot be an artist, particularly if everything is art.
Also, a lot of modern art is philosophical in nature. It pushes the boundaries on the definition of what is art? Of course, this started over a hundred years ago, so by now the boundaries have been pushed pretty far, resulting in stuff like this.
It's hard to understand and celebrate the glories of the Internet as a vehicle for "freedom and free speech" and all that good stuff, when all too often large communities within it participate in acts that are all too banal and primitive as is mob vigilanteism.
So is the Internet truly a pinnacle of a civilized and free society, or the regression into a barbaric state? Cause this seems pretty barbaric to me...
(I am not condoning the lawyer's or FunkyJunk's actions. I think they are wrong. I just think there are better and more civilized ways of reacting to and handling this).
Alternatively, there's no higher proportion of mobbish vigilantes now than there has been in the past, they can just form into fewer, larger groups thanks to instant global telecommunication, and you can come across them more easily for the same reason.
Just like there aren't any more natural disasters than there were 100 years ago, we just hear about more of them because it's so much easier to send the news now; and there aren't any more... say... underwater-basket-weavers now than then, they're just easier to find now because they're gathering on facebook and etsy.
I don't think you properly take into account some of the internet factors that actually make a higher proportion of mobbish vigilantes:
1 - Visibility, which you yourself mention. We get to see injustices that we would never see before. Also, like you say, we get to see mob reactions that we would never see before and so we have many more chances to join mobs in a day.
2 - Ease of response. It's easy to post vitriol. It hardly takes any time at all, and you don't even have to walk to someone's house or disrupt your plans for the day. This is a direct result of internet tools that make communication easy, which didn't exist before.
3 - Anonymity, and lack of physical presence. People say things anonymously on the internet that they would never in a million years say to someone in person.
Basically, it's just easier to be in a mob these days...
Am I the only one who doesn't find this all that positive? I already think scientology is bad/evil/dangerous, and I think that illegally getting access to their secrets might make the opposition (us) look worse in the public eye. Everybody has dirty secrets, both sides, and it's a bit low to go after the other side's private emails. It'd be much easier to fight/debate against their public image, which is easy enough, without having to resort to intrusive attacks. We have the warrant system in the states for a reason, and if this were to happen in court the evidence would just get tossed right out.
Idk, am I alone here? Am I wrong? I'm open to contrary opinions.
> and it's a bit low to go after the other side's private emails.
I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all seem to be about Scientology business / logistics. That by itself obviously does not excuse leaking them, but (again, as far as I can see) the emails do not contain much personal information.
> It'd be much easier to fight/debate against their public image, which is easy enough, without having to resort to intrusive attacks.
I would probably agree with you if this was about any other organisation, but the CoS has a long, long history of suppressing information about them by any means, both legally and illegally. People who leave the church are routinely harassed and threatened to prevent them from talking about it. Judging from the past, they also do a lot of dirty business that, in my opinion, needs be be widely known.
Considering this, I think this might be a good thing. At the very least, I find it hard to blame the person leaking this.
> We have the warrant system in the states for a reason, and if this were to happen in court the evidence would just get tossed right out.
Even though US law probably doesn't apply here, you're almost certainly right about the legality of this. But, honestly, I'm not sure why we should care, we're not the part of the Austrian judicial system. I'm still somewhat ambivalent about the ethical status of this, but I think we should not conflate legality and morality here.
> I think that calling them "private" is a bit misleading here. As far as I can see, they all seem to be about Scientology business / logistics.
That doesn't make them not-private. My email is private no matter what the subject is.
More to the point - you seem to be saying that it's okay to read someone's email, and then just release the parts that don't contain much personal information. That is clearly shady.
Maybe you can make the case that the CoS is so evil that the normal rules for what you should/shouldn't do with someone's email account don't apply here. But you certainly can't pretend that this is anything other than leaking private information.
Calling them private is certainly technically correct (the best kind of correct), but the term is sufficiently overloaded that I thought it would be worth pointing out that they don't seem to contain personal information (e.g. people talking about their children or their marriage trouble).
I don't think that this is the result of someone reading all their emails and releasing the ones without personal information (which I don't think would be okay, I'm not sure how you got that impression), but a result of everyone using @scientology.co.at email addresses.
As I said above, I do not think that the lack of personal information by itself makes releasing them okay, but I do think that the combination of the CoS being secretive and "evil" gives this particular hack some (moral, not legal) legitimacy, because it is difficult to get this information using less dodgy methods.
I doubt you're alone in that, and I don't think you're wrong. I can't help but feel a little glee at this and the dirty laundry that undoubtedly will be uncovered in the next couple of days. But it's a guilty pleasure. Behaviour like this just conflicts with the categorical imperative.
However I might change my tone if something really serious is uncovered here. I think whistle blowing is a good thing, and this seems like the next best equivalent. Of course, that is a ridiculous position to take, essentially giving any random hacker the license to read through random personal email and blow the whistle on demand.[0] So I guess that position isn't tenable, either. But I know it'd be hard to be critical of a hypothetical hack that revealed or delivered proof about illegal activities by certain groups, be it Scientology, large-scale financial stuff or neo-nazis.
A more responsible release would probably only include incriminating or otherwise extraordinary emails, preserving (sort of) the privacy of most people. But arguably that's so difficult and personally dangerous in case of large data hacks or leaks that it's equivalent of saying a responsible release isn't viable.
[0] As determined by them, but that problem applies to all kinds of whistle blowing.
Shedding a bit more light on the ethics of the action of leaking this data, the reason why a lot of people feel conflicted about the right- or wrongness of the action, is because it is perfectly acceptable from a Virtue Ethics point of view: The fact that leaking private data would be wrong in the vast majority of cases is inconsequential because the data being that of a (generally agreed upon to be) evil organisation ascertains the moral character of the actor (in some sense).
A strict moral code like the C.I. is pretty dangerous when it forces you to disclose you're hiding Jews in your attic (sorry for the "Godwin", but that's the counterexample I was taught). It's even worse if done half-assed "well obviously you don't need to take it that strict if it leads to bad things" because then you can argue your way around everything--without even having to consider "does this make me a good person?".
And from that point of view, for me, the real question to ask: Would this person (or persons) have done the same thing if the emails did not belong to Scientology or neo-nazis or similar?
You're not the only one. The "hacktivism" trend is not going to work out the way Internet activists want it to; instead, it's just going to associate legitimate advocacy with criminality (and, for what it's worth: advocating against a criminal conspiracy wearing the garb of a religion is a legit target for adversary).
What exactly is gained by targeting an organization already famously good at playing the victim game with pointlessly malicious Internet pranks? Nothing.
Slight assumption but I bet you're for having a police force, justice system and prisons. Consider that the police use oppression to fight oppression. The justice system uses professional liars to decide on people's life paths. Prisons are essentially cages for human beings. You likely already support fighting fire with fire.
I think the post you were responding to was just nit-picking the logic that illegal == immoral (or wrong). I don't see anything in that post that states what you are railing against here.
No, definitely not everyone. For starters, it should be obvious the GP would exclude "those who believe gay marriage is morally wrong".
But in particular, I am especially wary of the "personal morals and ethics" of people making broad generalizations like you just did.
Fortunately, I know somebody who's perfectly entitled to enforce his personal morals right back at you. And yeah, I am aware that you could do the same thing, but you also appear to believe that to do so would make you a bad person. So it's your choice, really: Submit, Be Good, or Be Bad.
I think you're right to be concerned. I think that in general it's not right to illegally access and distribute the secrets of "the other side", even if you're totally convinced of your own moral superiority to them. I don't think it's right for Democrats to hack into Republicans' emails, nor vice versa, and I don't think it's even okay when it's a group that most people find detestable (e.g. the British National Party, who got their emails hacked recently).
On the other hand, in this particular case I'm inclined to say "Fuck it, they're Scientology". But I'm aware that I'm on pretty darn thin ice, ethically speaking.
I just think it was a waste of time. I guess they had to find an easy target, and they probably did it for the lulz (which is a douche move, but it's their MO).
