Craigslist is a genuine, certified, giant. It’s making media conglomerates wet their beds at night. But it is still not the one-size-fits-all solution to publicizing garage sales, scrapbooking meetings and indie concerts that many web literati argue. Jim Buckmaster, Craigslists’ CEO, told the Fool:

“I think it is still at $18 billion, the classifieds industry. It is mind-boggling to us that so much money still goes into a problem that has basically been solved and the costs are extremely low. In our minds, far too much capital is going into something where they could be finding cures for diseases, putting men on Mars or whatever … with that money.” (Motley Fool)

I agree. But classified advertising also appeals to a segment of society that cannot afford the costs routinely assumed by current Craigslist users: the cost of equipment (either buying, leasing, or travelling to a public use computer), internet service (whether dial-up or broadband) and the spare time in the day to segment their information gathering deeply enough to identify Craigslist as a resource.

These are the dishwashers looking for jobs; Wal-mart employees looking for affordable apartments; the single mom trying to find daycare while holding down a job and going to school; the retiree trying to squeeze a few more dollars by selling the old lawn-mower.

They’re a significant proportion of the population, but a group that evangelists always seem to forget (or is that overlook) as they scramble towards the next innovation.

Evangelists can get so wrapped up in selling their new flavour of Kool-Aid that they forget billions of people travel the earth every day, oblivious and unaffected by their work.

Media conglomerates are searching for a solution to free services like Craigslist - a solution that saves their bottom-line. As traditional sources of revenue shrink, they may resort to subscription or pay-per-use schemes to fund their information gathering and distribution systems.

And this will likely result in less information and resources available to the poor - at least until the cost of computing becomes affordable for everyone (either over time or with extensive government underwriting).