Nope! I respectfully disagree. It's a win for current craigslist users and craigslist, but it's a loss for the ecosystem as a whole and everyone in the future besides craigslist.
Imagine if email was a centralized system instead of a protocol. It would not be good for users in the long run, even if the most righteous person ever was in charge of it (btw Craig Newmark seems like a pretty cool guy). The temptation for the email company to abuse its position would be too great ("Don't like our company? OK, don't use email!"). Even if the company wasn't abusing users (this is the where we currently are with craigslist) it will still always be glacially slow to innovate compared to a decentralized system like actual email.
It actually would have been great if craigslist had stopped innovating entirely and gotten replaced. Now we're back where we started.
Totally! Each company should work in it's own best interest. I'm only pointing out that the interests of craigslist are neither the interests of developers nor the general public.
Imagine if email was a centralized system instead of a protocol. It would not be good for users in the long run, even if the most righteous person ever was in charge of it (btw Craig Newmark seems like a pretty cool guy). The temptation for the email company to abuse its position would be too great ("Don't like our company? OK, don't use email!"). Even if the company wasn't abusing users (this is the where we currently are with craigslist) it will still always be glacially slow to innovate compared to a decentralized system like actual email.
It actually would have been great if craigslist had stopped innovating entirely and gotten replaced. Now we're back where we started.
EDIT: spelling