Elevating Craigslist

I am moving 30 miles east to the South Shore at the end of this month. Unlike my last two moves, my wife's employer is not paying for this one. So I am currently scrounging for boxes and will likely rent a truck to move myself.

One can easily spend a few hundred bucks on boxes, that is if you are a Luddite. On Craigslist, there are plenty of ads stating, "Free Moving Boxes". Why is that? Well, if you haven't lived in a decent sized place you might not realize how many boxes a small family can fill up when it moves. Probably the guestimate would be anywhere from 50-100 large boxes. Once you move in, unpacking them is a chore in its own right. You'll be swimming in packing paper and you'll desperately want those cumbersome boxes out of your way.

The thing is, free moving boxes don't last very long - especially not in Boston where everyone is cheap and always on the move. The first few ads I responded to too late. But last night, someone posted an ad for their boxes that "weren't broken down" and here was my response.

Hi—we are close by, on the other side of route 9. I can come take them all—doesn’t matter that they are not broken down. I can come any time that is convenient for you. Call or email anytime. Thanks so much!!!

They contacted me early this morning, I put my two kids in the car, and ran over. The guy told me he had tons of responses and he obviously drafted me because I was nearby and because I implied that I would break them down. When I arrived, there it was, a veritable mountain of boxes piled throughout his three car garage. Utility knife in hand, it still took me a good 45 minutes of frenzied work to remove all the packing paper and flatten the boxes out for transport.

I said to the guy, this is what you call a "intersection of mutual needs". In other words, he needed the boxes removed and I was in the market for low cost moving supplies.

In the pre-Craigslist days, this is a transaction that likely would have never taken place. He'd have thrown out his boxes, I'd have wasted money on new ones, and all sorts of time and energy would have been squandered on unproductive activity.

It almost goes without saying that this is the profound beauty of the internet. The web hasn't just lubricated transactions, it's created whole new markets and efficiencies on everything from buying a stock to finding a date to recycling moving boxes.

The bulls yammer these days about "productivity" and how businesses are increasingly getting more done with less. I never liked how academically nebulous that sounded. I firmly believe that the massive economic expansion since 9/11 is due almost entirely to the internet and the enhanced telecommunication it has facilitated. The way I see it, the internet bubble never really popped; it's still expanding and it never really was a "bubble". It's more a phenomenon, a juggernaut, or an elixir whose point of diminishing return is still nowhere in sight.

The gentleman with the free boxes asked where and why I was moving. In a momentary lapse of tact, I left out the part about my hating his new hometown of Newton - after all, the poor guy just paid probably $1.5 million bones for the house he just moved into.

He and his wife were tangibly ecstatic that I had just cleaned out their garage of that massive mess. The guy also bragged that he sold his Brookline condo on Craigslist in three days back in March, sans broker of course. Understandably, he kept singing the praises of Craigslist.

Guy - The other great part about this (i.e. me taking his boxes) is that we get to save some trees.

I rolled my eyes and said to myself,

"This is precisely why he is moving into Newton and we are running far from it."