That said, I still think Craig's impact on Rochester will be huge. He's only been in town for 4 months, but there are parts of CL that are already becoming useful. The housing section is reaching critical mass for "trendy" city neighborhoods like Park Ave. The "for sale" sections actually have some real items for sale. Even the jobs section is starting to contain some real jobs (mostly in the tech sector).
Craigslist has around 20 employees, and is funded from operational profit. In other words, Craig can stick around Rochester as long as he wants. Craig has a long-term, sustainable business model that provides services at a tiny fraction of the cost of the incumbent.
If you're one of Craig's competitors, using the Craigslist of today to judge the Craig of tomorrow is extremely dangerous. Craigslist is a bottom-up phenomenon. In San Francisco, it started small and grew by word of mouth. Today, in the largest cities in the country, Craigslist is the place for classified ads for 18-40 year olds living in the urban core. That's huge for a 20 person operation.
When Craig reaches critical mass in Rochester, the Insider will be half of its current size, and Shitty News will no longer run classified ads and personals. The target demographic of both of those publications will use Craig for most of their advertising needs, because it is cheaper (mainly free), faster and more convenient.
As for Rants & Raves: I think it is underappreciated. On the Internet, people with shared interests have a number of places to congregate. Yahoo Groups is a good example of a special-interest gathering place. But general interest forums just don't work - they tend to be clogged with trolls or full of flamewars. RNR is one of the few general-interest forums that works about as well as such a forum can work. The lag in posting keeps it from being flooded by trolls, spam is removed pretty efficiently, and the topics are varied enough that it is usually worth a look every day.
Craig is the one of the few successful hippie/capitalists, and, yes, Craigslist is Godzilla.
