Possessions-minimizing as I am, goodness knows I have too many objects and too few platforms on which to sell them! For transacting within my local area, the minimalistic Craigslist seems to remain the champ almost two decades after I discovered it. But two decades is a while, and surely not everyone is still using Craigslist. Was there a second halfway-decent option? I tried searching. Facebook Marketplace looks well-integrated lately, but didn't make my list. The next-best one looked like "OfferUp," something I'd never heard of before this deliberate search.

(Note that I'm typing this in July 2023.)

There are a few things it does well:

It aggregates and presents listings nicely within a reasonably tidy web interface which supports light and dark modes. Buyers can specify the geographical radius within which to search. For shippable things, it includes an entire little eBay of its own where its fees are collected by paying through it. For local things, it merely facilitates the buyer-seller connection and charges no fees, Craigslist-style.

It offers paid accounts, as well as paid preferential treatment for listings, but provides the default free service by interspersing occasional ads amid browsed listings from places like Amazon and eBay. And it's easy to browse a local seller's whole casket of items and see ratings from buyers.

There are also a number of big disappointments and inconveniences.

Straight away: as a buyer, I wasn't permitted even to contact a seller without phone verification, and since I only use Skype for phone contact, that's almost always a disqualifying brick wall for me. (Why is phone verification so important as to be required by so many companies with no alternatives, let alone as an identity verification measure? Aren't phone numbers inevitably redistributed?)

The remaining stiltedness of the experience stemmed from my main method of listing everything, which involves plenty of typing and photo-preparing, from the Mac. I presumed that would be smooth and pleasant amid said web interface, but I realized something once I decided I was "in" enough to create an account and add a profile picture. Presumably I'd select the file from my hard drive and upload it –

But, oh. I couldn't add a profile picture. To do that, I had to download a native smartphone app – for iOS, in my case. Then I could just select the file from my iCloud account, and –

… But, oh. You can only select photos from your system photo library. Okay, back to the Files app to transfer the once-transferred file to the photo library.

It turns out that all the same rules apply for creating listings. You have to create them using the mobile app, and you can only pull images from the system photo library. So, if I'm typing a detailed item description, I'm either typing on the mobile device or typing on the Mac and copying and pasting (which is thankfully a breeze for Apple devices). Also happily, Apple Silicon Macs can run iOS apps if the developer has allowed it, but this one hasn't.

So, compared to Craigslist or eBay, OfferUp is pretty darn inconvenient. After enduring the process, the thought of going back to edit the price of a listing was daunting enough that I unhesitatingly decided to put it off.

I feel like there's arisen a more phone-based culture where it feels acceptable, natural, and even preferable to some people to snap pictures from their phone, type an overly brief and clumsy description, and call it done. I first had this impression when I noticed that eBay's native app felt in some ways more usable than their traditional web interface. Years after it launched, it too exclusively supports a dark mode.

But at least eBay has a web interface for sellers. OfferUp just doesn't. And while OfferUp on the web does have that all-important-to-me dark mode support, it seems to repeatedly forget the setting, as well as my preferred search radius, while I'm still logged in.

Incidentally, I don't even understand why a service like OfferUp would need a native app. The web is capable, adaptable, widely compatible, and one web app requires far less maintenance and babysitting than seperate iOS and Android apps. I just checked and found that Craigslist has a native iOS app, but I didn't even know about it because needing it has never occurred to me.

So, those are my main reactions. OfferUp is usable but far from great, and humble Craigslist, despite occasionally requiring phone verification, remains far more convenient and time-tested. Hopefully OfferUp's team will take notes.