I just thought I should put this down for posterity.
   Do you remember the Seattle Times classified ad section?  
The P.I.  The Little Nickle?  There must have been thousands of 
ads in the Seattle Times, all maybe in two point or four point 
type.  The pages were what, 17 x 34, I think.  I'll look it up.  
They were huge.  Entire pages of fine print maybe eight or nine 
columns wide.
   Of course you know the classified ad section provided a huge 
stream of revenue for the newspapers.  They acted like you were 
trying to start the next insurrection if you called and placed 
and ad.  There were all sorts of rules and restrictions.  It 
cost a fortune to place even a two line ad which seemed to 
reflect the pure greed of monopolistic Seattle Times.  The last 
ad I placed in the Seattle Times, in the nineties was over $80 
if I remember right.
   Either way we lived for the classified ads, at times.  If we 
needed a car, in my and my brothers late teens and early 
twenties, we scanned the ads.  We scan the entire auto section, 
of maybe three or four thousands ads in seconds looking for the 
right telephone prefixes where we knew we could get a good deal.
   The internet has really slowed this down.  We have to wait 
for the display, now, on CraigsList, or any other ad media, and 
can no longer scan hundreds or thousands of ads in seconds.
    My brothers and I learned we got the good deals in the 
prefix areas we knew.  I never looked at more than five vehicles 
before I found a 'super' deal that I would usually drive for the 
next few years.  I remember getting a Studebaker once, for $200, 
that I drove for eight years and never had put a wrench to it 
outside of spark plugs and oil changes.  And then there was the 
1954 Dodge P.U.  That was fun driving it to work, up into the 
mountains to get firewood and over the pass many times to help a 
friend move.  Then there was the Toronto, the Puegot, Bronco, 
Diamond T, Super Sport.  Cars were cheap and easy throught the 
classified ads.
   Awe the good old days.  Then came CraigsList.  CraigsList was 
fantastic.  FREE ADs.  What could be better.  No more 
imperialistic Seattle Times.
   There were incredible stories about the deals people got on 
CraigsList.  Five dollar cars that 'I only had to put a battery 
in,' one fellow said.  Another picked up a TR6 for a dollar 
because of a divorce.  The deals and the stories were phenomenal 
even sometimes making the evening news.  CraigsList soon became 
a part of our lives and the angry monarchial Seattle Times could 
go to ...  well you know ... go away.
   It took a few years for most of us old luddites to make the 
switch from the Little Nickle to Craigslist.  The Little Nickle 
had been a God send in the destructive wake of the Seattle 
Times.  I was loyal to the Little Nickle which had generous ad 
rates, honest hard working ad takers, and area ads that worked 
and kept ad costs affordable.  You could still get a $2 add as 
late as the nineties in the Little Nickle.  There were other 
Nickle sheets around, God bless them.  They kept our hopes 
alive.  Unfortunately free is irresistable and CraigsList 
quickly replaced Nickle in our vernacular.  A lot of big blow 
holes were spouting their conquest on CraigsList and we all had 
to eventually give it a try.
    But again, as a luddite, I'm slow in trying new things and 
when I finally got to CraigsList for that much needed next car, 
the gold rush was over.  Every car I looked at had been 
previously bought on CraigsList with the intent to buy, fix up 
and resale.  Honestly, I looked at seven cars, a little higher 
price, out of desperation, because I needed a car, and everyone 
of them had been bought on CraigsList before by the individual 
trying to sell them to me.
     Look!  I'm not putting down CraigsList for what it is.  
I'm just sorry we don't have more than one CraigsList.  I think 
it's short sighted of the public to rely on just the one not 
counting Ebay.  But the arrogance of the Seattle Times and 
monster monopolistic newspapers deserve what they got and should 
have been progressive enough to take advantage of the internet, 
rather than fight it to greedily hold onto their revenue stream 
as it was.
    The new problem is that CraigsList is free.  Back in the 
days when someone paid for an ad they would answer their phone.  
Now every other ad you contact on CraigsList doesn't respond.  
I guess people get busy, free is a low priority, and they put 
off working with their add.  Instead, when we paid the Seattle 
Times $80 to run an ad, and have a bunch of angry ad takers balk 
at us, we manned that phone.
   And then there's the security issue.  People are afraid to 
advertise on CraigsList because of the robbery stories we've 
heard on the news.  And it's valid, if you live alone, are in a 
remote area, or if you're buying something with cash in your 
pocket you have some second thoughts about running the ad.
  You gotta ask:  if everyone had to pay money to run their 
classified ad would there be any robberies?  Maybe, but it 
didn't use to happen this way when we bowed to the Seattle Times 
first.  The security risk of running a modern day classified ad 
is new to the internet.

Ken Bushnell
2018