But if they just wrote an SPA and overrode the back button behavior and displayed a little spinner icon while html was loaded via json, your experience would be so much better.

Founder: The paradigm has shifted. 5kb HTML pages are no longer disruptive enough, we need more javascript for a-

VC: Shut up and light this bag of cash on fire. Focus on number of non-paying users and make sure it's big enough so I can introduce you to more people with bigger pile of cash to light on fire.

Craigslist Post: We are hiring front-end React.js developers with 10+ year experience.

HR: We hire the best of the best! Are you a passionate code ninja that lives and breathes code?! Show us your github and bitbucket profiles and enter the Craigslist Hackathon today! We promise we'll consider you.. and then go whine on HN about how hard it is to find a truly qualified candidate.

HR: Oh we are sorry but it seems like you aren't having enough "fun" by committing your waking hours contributing to open source projects for absolutely no financial compensation. We want people who love coding so much they do it after work and on the weekends. We are willing to pay below market average for said rock stars.

Haha! Sadly, I have seen CL posts like that. 5+ years experience for frameworks that have only been around for 1 to 2 years.

Is the VC culture really like that? Their incentives leading away from profitable simplicity?

/s

It seems like most of the complaints about craigslist (including those in the article) are ultimately complaints about what it's like to buy stuff from a random person in your area. People are messy, arbitrary and annoying if you don't know them and you only want to buy something from them. People are part of all sorts of social groups with all sorts of standards of behavior.

The dream of creating an app that can shield a person from all the uncertainty of buying from an individual is appealing - but I don't see how you could really offer a better deal. The problem is that however smoothly you put two people in touch, those two people will have to do lots of annoying work coming to an agreement and it's hard to see a lot saved by this initial increased smoothness. Oh, and if you filter out the annoying people, you filter out a lot of people who actually have stuff to sell too.

Those people are essentially asking for someone to facilitate the transaction for them. We already have that, in the form of online auctionhouses like eBay and open market storefronts like Amazon. Want to buy a used tv without interacting with someone you don't know? Amazon or eBay are your best option.

I'll admit this doesn't really work for big stuff like couches and other furniture, but in that case you're asking for hyperlocal protections that an online business just can't offer. Check out a thrift store, pawn shop, estate sale, or local auctionhouse instead.

Craigslist has it's niche, and it's niche doesn't really have room to improve.

It is not just the sans-js experience about craigslist that people complain about. It is the coloring and lack of nice CSS stuff too.

And I am pretty sure if you took a developer from say 6 years ago and told them to look into the front-end code, they could optimize the KB and keep the site looking the same. I am also sure you could optimize the way it is organized and bring some civility and style to posts without doing any CSS or JS work.

On top of all that, if they launched an XML version to each page, they could be the listing backbone of the internet.

Oh those nice simple features ... but maybe the only way of avoiding JS/CSS bloat is to avoid all features entirely.

What people complain about that? Other developers or people in tech? Sure it doesn't look as modern by today's standards but is changing the styling, font, etc. going to make it easier to use? Doing so may actually startle a lot of users which is most likely why they have only made small changes over the years.

I have seen a lot of CL alternatives that look nicer at first glance but the UI lacks. Sometimes more features is not a good thing. KISS principle is oftentimes better especially when you are working with such a wide user base such as Craigslist.

CL only has 30 employees, never took VC, is one of the most highly visited sites and brings in millions of profit a year. Not many other web companies can claim that. If I were in that position, I don't think I would be too worried about the tech community complaining about how ugly my site was especially if my users continued to come back and benefit.

CL does have rss feeds (example https://slo.craigslist.org/search/web?format=rss) but they have pretty strict terms on how you can use them.

You can search multiple craigslist locations by doing a google search with "server:craigslist.org" to limit the search to craigslist's server. Not the most refined approach but good in a jiffy.

you can search multiple locations on craigslist right now. in the left hand bar click "include nearby areas". there is also a miles from zip search option.

I believe you are limited to 200 miles with this option.

The lack of an index, and indeed the incredible technology dedicated to preventing external indices, is widely considered to be a feature of craigslist.

You CAN search multiple locations! Go to Google, type in your search term, then append "site:craigslist.org" to the search term.

IMO, I shouldn't have to use Google to search Craigslist listings. Plus, this method only gives you listings that Google has already indexed.

Search multiple Craigslist locations: http://www.searchtempest.com/

there are no craigslist results there. probably went away with 3taps

Don't know where you got that idea, but yes there are!