This is coming from personal experience so take it with a grain of salt:
Craigslist is an insanely valuable source for lead generation in recruiting, and car sales.
I run a recruiting company and craigslist is the best source of applicants by volume and return on investment (cost ($) per applicant).
Having observed them closely, they are not ignorant to this fact.
When specific cities or sections grow more popular they begin charging fees.
Their biggest boon has been a recent change to charge car dealerships 5$ per post. Car dealers pay because only months earlier they were paying for black hat solutions to post for 1-2$ per post.
FWIW, if you ever watched hot girls wanted (a documentary film) you will learn that a lot of "porn stars" were recruited via craiglist. It was a very interesting documentary to see how many people would actually use craiglist to find opportunity.
I was recruited to my first sysadmin/devops/etc. position through craigslist; similarly I encouraged a family member who quickly found a construction engineering position.
Craigslist is an insanely valuable source for lead generation in recruiting, and car sales.
I run a recruiting company and craigslist is the best source of applicants by volume and return on investment (cost ($) per applicant).
Having observed them closely, they are not ignorant to this fact.
When specific cities or sections grow more popular they begin charging fees.
Their biggest boon has been a recent change to charge car dealerships 5$ per post. Car dealers pay because only months earlier they were paying for black hat solutions to post for 1-2$ per post.