Chris Erwin

As a nerd and IT guy for a non-profit full of conservative tech-illiterates (and I mean this in the kindest way possible), I’m always on the lookout for cheap or free gear.  The Allentown and Philly Craigslists are fairly active, but most of the computer equipment is home user stuff.  I’m in the market for racks, switches, patch panels, and used server equipment.

I had heard of Freecycle but had never checked it out. Freecycle aims to connect people who have shit with people who want shit.  Hey, that’s me!  I want shit!  Certainly, this is a noble cause, however the execution is absolutely terrible.  What Freecycle SHOULD be is a Craigslist-like listing of free stuff available throughout a certain geographical area.  The listing should be accessible by anyone from anywhere without the need to register any kind of account.  This is what I was expecting to see.

Instead, what they’ve done is aggregated the titles of a bunch of Yahoo groups.  Just the titles.  You search for ‘groups’ near you and are given a list of Yahoo groups that are near you.  The catch is that you have to register an account with Freecycle to click through to any of the groups.

Fine, I register an account and click through to the Allentown group.  I then click “Join Group” and am presented with a login/create account screen for Yahoo.  WHAT…THE…FUCK.  So now we’re up to two accounts necessary just to read a list of garbage that people are trying to pawn off on others.

Luckily I have a Yahoo account.  Why?  Becuase Yahoo bought Flickr and feels the need to force Flickr users to register a Yahoo account as if we’re even remotely interested in any of Yahoo’s other bullshit services.

So I log in with my Yahoo account and choose my options for email (none you jackasses, I don’t want emails about free garbage every day, I’ll look for what I want through the web interface).

Now that that’s over, I look for closer groups.  Sure enough, there’s an Upper Bucks group.  I try adding it but I’m presented with an error.  Apparently I didn’t fill out the ‘message to group administrator’ field so that the admin can approve me.  What?  You want to give approval to people who are looking for trash?!  Jesus.  So I opt for adding one word,  ‘freecycle’,  to the box, although I was considering entering ‘stop thinking your shitty trashpicking group should require approval you egomaniacal assclown’ instead.  I’m not sure who I was talking to, but they’re an idiot.  Of that I was sure.

So I go to bed thinking about what a shitty failure Freecycle is; the worst possible execution of something that is an extremely simple idea.  Why must I wait a day to trashpick?  Unbelievable.  Morning comes and some time in the night someone deemed me worthy of their refuse club.  Oh joy.  But what’s this?  11 emails from Freecycle, most of which are about people looking for something.  What the shit?  I think back on the night before and realize that when their shitty form threw a shitty error, it reset the radio buttons to “receive all alerts about people’s worthless shit” instead of “no emails, I’ll use a WEB fucking BROWSER YOU BECAUSE IT’S AT LEAST 1998 you ASSHOLES!”

I promptly clicked on the closest Unsubscribe link I could find and assumed it was over.  Nope.  I get a confirmation email from Yahoo.  I reply to that and get TWO farewell emails.  God dammit stop sending me bullshit!

So an hour of my time and 15 useless emails in my Inbox has led me to conclude that Freecycle is bullshit.  It could and should be a website with a list of links to stuff people want to get rid of.  Instead it’s a mailing list aggregator, as if mailing lists are relavant anymore.  I guess it’s back to scouring Craigslist and expanding my daily reading to the Reading, Lancaster, and Poconos Craigs.  Or lists.  Whatever they are.