Craigslist has solved so many problems for me. Combined with some Chrome extensions to automatically preview posts, it’s the easiest way to find or get rid of things. A few stories that exemplify why I love it are below:

• My 5.1 surround sound system overheated and died, leaving me with 5.1 speakers but no receiver. I put them up for free on Craigslist, placed them outside my apartment door, and they disappeared within an hour. I didn’t have to haul them to the trash and they got a new home.

• I don’t know how to find housing without Craigslist. I seriously wouldn’t know how to go about finding a place to live other than walking around a neighborhood looking for “For Rent” signs or searching through classifieds. Even better, websites like PadMapper can present Craiglist results on a map and allow you to filter results by price and bedroom.

• In an unfortunate turn of events, I found myself with about 130 slightly moldy bagel boards. These are about the same size as a commercial cookie sheet, but made out of plywood and ten times as heavy. While they sat on my porch, I went through my options on how to get rid of them. I would need to rent another Zipcar to drive them to a dump, and most likely pay to dump them. I could try to find a dumpster elsewhere. I could pay a junk hauling company to come and pick them up. I then remembered the magic of Craigslist, and listed them for free, with full disclosure that they were slightly moldy. While unsuitable for food service, sanding them down would probably make them useful for any number of projects requiring wood - even if it is just for a campfire. While moldy bagel boards don’t fly off the porch like a set of speakers, they were picked up within a few days of posting. It didn’t cost me anything, and gave the boards a second life outside of a dump.

Could Craigslist be prettier? Yes. Could it be more user friendly? Probably. Is it amazing in its ability to create markets for anything? Definitely.