Forget eBay, Just Give Your Crap Away

from the much-easier dept

While some people look at eBay and see a great way to get rid of old junk they no longer have a use for, there are still some people where eBay seems like too much of a hassle. For those people, they usually have four choices: just hang onto the stuff and let it pile up (my personal favorite), toss it into the garbage pile, donate it to some charity or (maybe) hand it off to one of those eBay middlemen who seem to keep popping up everywhere. However, there seems to be a growing group of people who have another option: give it away to someone who wants it. This isn't new (and I'd thought we'd written about it before...), but it appears that the concept of Freecycle is growing. Basically, they sign up for an email list in their area, then people email "haves" and "wants" to the list, and others respond. It's not trading. It's not about selling. It's all about free. If you have something you want to get rid of, rather than doing any of the above, you just find someone directly who could actually use it, and you give it to them. Of course, it looks like some of the groups are pretty high volume, which could make it difficult to deal with. Still, it's an interesting way to build a community in a Craigslist-style fashion.