I just thought I should put this down for posterity.
Do you remember the Seattle Times classified ad section?
The P.I. The Little Nickle? There must have been thousands of
ads in the Seattle Times, all maybe in two point or four point
type. The pages were what, 17 x 34, I think. I'll look it up.
They were huge. Entire pages of fine print maybe eight or nine
columns wide.
Of course you know the classified ad section provided a huge
stream of revenue for the newspapers. They acted like you were
trying to start the next insurrection if you called and placed
and ad. There were all sorts of rules and restrictions. It
cost a fortune to place even a two line ad which seemed to
reflect the pure greed of monopolistic Seattle Times. The last
ad I placed in the Seattle Times, in the nineties was over $80
if I remember right.
Either way we lived for the classified ads, at times. If we
needed a car, in my and my brothers late teens and early
twenties, we scanned the ads. We scan the entire auto section,
of maybe three or four thousands ads in seconds looking for the
right telephone prefixes where we knew we could get a good deal.
The internet has really slowed this down. We have to wait
for the display, now, on CraigsList, or any other ad media, and
can no longer scan hundreds or thousands of ads in seconds.
My brothers and I learned we got the good deals in the
prefix areas we knew. I never looked at more than five vehicles
before I found a 'super' deal that I would usually drive for the
next few years. I remember getting a Studebaker once, for $200,
that I drove for eight years and never had put a wrench to it
outside of spark plugs and oil changes. And then there was the
1954 Dodge P.U. That was fun driving it to work, up into the
mountains to get firewood and over the pass many times to help a
friend move. Then there was the Toronto, the Puegot, Bronco,
Diamond T, Super Sport. Cars were cheap and easy throught the
classified ads.
Awe the good old days. Then came CraigsList. CraigsList was
fantastic. FREE ADs. What could be better. No more
imperialistic Seattle Times.
There were incredible stories about the deals people got on
CraigsList. Five dollar cars that 'I only had to put a battery
in,' one fellow said. Another picked up a TR6 for a dollar
because of a divorce. The deals and the stories were phenomenal
even sometimes making the evening news. CraigsList soon became
a part of our lives and the angry monarchial Seattle Times could
go to ... well you know ... go away.
It took a few years for most of us old luddites to make the
switch from the Little Nickle to Craigslist. The Little Nickle
had been a God send in the destructive wake of the Seattle
Times. I was loyal to the Little Nickle which had generous ad
rates, honest hard working ad takers, and area ads that worked
and kept ad costs affordable. You could still get a $2 add as
late as the nineties in the Little Nickle. There were other
Nickle sheets around, God bless them. They kept our hopes
alive. Unfortunately free is irresistable and CraigsList
quickly replaced Nickle in our vernacular. A lot of big blow
holes were spouting their conquest on CraigsList and we all had
to eventually give it a try.
But again, as a luddite, I'm slow in trying new things and
when I finally got to CraigsList for that much needed next car,
the gold rush was over. Every car I looked at had been
previously bought on CraigsList with the intent to buy, fix up
and resale. Honestly, I looked at seven cars, a little higher
price, out of desperation, because I needed a car, and everyone
of them had been bought on CraigsList before by the individual
trying to sell them to me.
Look! I'm not putting down CraigsList for what it is.
I'm just sorry we don't have more than one CraigsList. I think
it's short sighted of the public to rely on just the one not
counting Ebay. But the arrogance of the Seattle Times and
monster monopolistic newspapers deserve what they got and should
have been progressive enough to take advantage of the internet,
rather than fight it to greedily hold onto their revenue stream
as it was.
The new problem is that CraigsList is free. Back in the
days when someone paid for an ad they would answer their phone.
Now every other ad you contact on CraigsList doesn't respond.
I guess people get busy, free is a low priority, and they put
off working with their add. Instead, when we paid the Seattle
Times $80 to run an ad, and have a bunch of angry ad takers balk
at us, we manned that phone.
And then there's the security issue. People are afraid to
advertise on CraigsList because of the robbery stories we've
heard on the news. And it's valid, if you live alone, are in a
remote area, or if you're buying something with cash in your
pocket you have some second thoughts about running the ad.
You gotta ask: if everyone had to pay money to run their
classified ad would there be any robberies? Maybe, but it
didn't use to happen this way when we bowed to the Seattle Times
first. The security risk of running a modern day classified ad
is new to the internet.
