I’m not keen to every word spoken by Jim Buckmaster or Craig Newmark, but this is the first time I’ve heard either explicitly claim that users asked to be charged for ads in the seven markets where Craigslist does that.

During an interview with “practical ecommerce,” Newmark made the crazy assertion I’ve said they had recently only implied, that Craigslist users begged them to stop giving away ads for free and instead wanted to be charged.

“We charge people in markets where they have asked us to charge them,” Newmark said.

First of all, I can’t imagine anyone asking to be charged. Someone’s words are being twisted there. Or, many someones.

Second, everything Newmark says before that quote indicates he was looking for ways to make money so Craigslist had enough to stay in business.

The idea of revenues and income didn’t come along until, I guess, we decided to make the company into a real company, which was in early ‘99. The volunteer thing hadn’t worked, and some folks helped me get out of denial and get serious. That meant making it a real company . . . Mostly it was just a matter of revenue to pay the bills. We didn’t have a strategy, per se. We just continued offering good customer service and plugging away. We were still just serving San Francisco and the Bay area. Five or six years ago, when I talked to a lot of people about how to generate revenues, they told me to charge people who are otherwise paying more money for less effective ads (elsewhere). They also told me to charge job posters for help wanted ads, and we were told to charge for real estate ads. In practice, we charge for help wanted ads in seven cities and apartment rental ads only in New York. We charge people in markets where they have asked us to charge them.

So which is it?

Did Craigslist need money to pay the bills or did users just get fed up with all those free ads? Charge me, damn it!