Craigslist briefly filled this role.

Before that, there were classified ads in papers. Those were lightly vetted by the local newspaper. Also, with a warrant, the police could generally track down the person that placed the ad, which broke a lot of bullshit scams. (Like house sitters that don’t exist, but are instead getting lists of people that will be out of town.)

Yep. And sometimes a nearby independant contractor who advertises once or twice a week on Facebook or in the local newspaper is going to provide a better service experience than the one blasting TV commercials on the local channels.

The nearby contractor who gets all their work through referrals is by definition better than the one who needs to blast TV ads. The best people are basically never on the market.

Not really by definition necessarily. But yes, it does seem very likely that referrals are the stronger signal.

In some sparser places there might also only be a couple contractors working anyway. Might be able to get suggestions just by asking around wherever you get permits.

Why does that matter? You can still do that. Nothing is stopping you from finding a local cleaner and negotiating the price, like our parents did.

People just don't want to do that

You get it. A couple phrases I live by (taught to me by the haggling parents generation); "you never know unless you ask" and "the worst they can say is, NO" These don't need to just apply to goods and services either. They have lead to very interesting and life altering experiences that wouldn't have happened if I didn't ask a one sentence question.

No, I can't do it that way anymore: my local paper doesn't have classified ads anymore. There are only different online versions, which are a lot cheaper and globally accessible, thus have a lot more fraud.

That tells me that modern advertising isn’t making things more expensive, otherwise companies that spend money on it would be crushed by companies that stick with the old ways and can undercut them.