After responding to a few ads on Craigslist and receiving no response I’ve hit upon the fundamental problem with free ad services: the seller has no “skin in the game.” Since the seller’s cost to post is free, he or she has nothing at stake and therefore doesn’t feel as compelled to respond to queries as he or she might when using paid ad services.

Maybe the problem is that email is too easy to ignore. Perhaps if Craigslist offered a better way of contacting sellers this could be alleviated.