CRAIGSLIST - Free market or unfair market?

A recent post on the Fast Company blog about CraigsList got me thinking. The post talks about the Nightline episode the other evening that continues the attacks on Craigslist because they are cutting into traditional media profits (namely classifieds) and some users are less than scrupulous in their use of the system.

I see stuff like this and this is one of those topics where I come down a little more conservatively. What ever happened to the free market? If Craigslist wants to offer its service for free (or cheap), and it cuts into the profits of the big media conglomerates, so be it. Rather than sitting and bitching about this relative nuisance in the marketplace, they should get off their asses and adapt. Consumers are changing, and upstarts like Craigslist are capitalizing on those changes. But businesses like the newspapers are slow to adapt.

One of the comments on the Fast Company blog summed it up nicely:

"publicly held old media companies won't be the innovators because investors can't see past the next quarter."