eBay buys 25% of Craigslist

Boy, I don't know what to think of this.

Craigslist is awesome. It's responsible for my current job, my previous job, lots of free furniture, free beach chairs, a free king size bed, Redskins tickets, my writing group, free LSAT review books, tennis partners. I've sold Southwest Rapid Rewards tickets on Craigslist, I've sold DVD+Rs on Craigslist, I traded away my old queen size bed and the (heavily marked-up) LSAT review books on Craigslist, for a six-pack of Becks and Red Hook respectively. I exchanged one homebrewed beer for some guy to install a shelf in my home office via Craigslist. I'm in negotiations to infiltrate a solitaire club via Craigslist. I gave away my old stereo and a walkman on Craigslist to keep the karma alive. I've emailed Craig a few times, and he always writes back. Heck, he lives a few blocks away from me--Marc Bush ran into him in a cafe last week!

Craigslist is so uncorporate it's beautiful. It's like a slice of Havana on the Internet, an online oasis. I'm not against corporations at all, but it's so refreshing in these days of Spiderman 2 ads on MLB bases and corporate ads on the sidewalk to have no ads on the site at all, to not have to register with another login name and password to either forget or make the same as all my other 10,000 passwords, to email the founder and get a prompt, thoughtful response! It's democracy, the unbelievable Internet dream alive, complete with ugly spammers and the unethical scam here and there, but in large part led by a good hearts and idealistic intentions.

And now 25% owned by eBay.

A useful company, eBay is, but it's way more capitalistic than democratic, with profit-hungry shareholders and sprawling corporate offices. By contrast, Craigslist operates out of an old Victorian out in the Inner Sunset district of SF and has 14 employees. I just hope they keep the next 25.000001% a hundred zillion miles away from eBay, and everybody else.

Read what Craig has to say about it here.