In 2006, Craigslist’s CEO Jim Buckmaster said that if enough users told them to “raise revenue and plow it into charity” that they would consider doing it. I have more recently emailed Craig Newmark and he indicated that they remain receptive to the idea if that’s what the users want.
This seems basically false:
50,000 users would surely count as a critical mass, meaning that each member of the Facebook page effectively created $20,000 for charity.
Perhaps a “critical mass” to get them to look at it and figure out what “the users” want, not to actually do it. In the comments you are more forthright about the difference.
That’s a good point. 50,000 people who click the charity-happy link don’t mean nearly as much as a similar number of people making signals that actually cost something. ie. 50,000 people that craig would think actually care.
I don’t know how Craig would judge the signers of a petition. I’m more concerned that there would be a counterbalancing population seriously opposed. or a large population mildly opposed, but this would be hard for him to assess.
Correct. “Surely” is too strong, I’d put the probability at 50⁄50 of it actually happening. Maybe lower. The expected value is still worth the effort, even if you assign a 10% probability of the whole thing happening.
This seems basically true:
This seems basically false:
Perhaps a “critical mass” to get them to look at it and figure out what “the users” want, not to actually do it. In the comments you are more forthright about the difference.
That’s a good point. 50,000 people who click the charity-happy link don’t mean nearly as much as a similar number of people making signals that actually cost something. ie. 50,000 people that craig would think actually care.
I don’t know how Craig would judge the signers of a petition. I’m more concerned that there would be a counterbalancing population seriously opposed. or a large population mildly opposed, but this would be hard for him to assess.
Correct. “Surely” is too strong, I’d put the probability at 50⁄50 of it actually happening. Maybe lower. The expected value is still worth the effort, even if you assign a 10% probability of the whole thing happening.