I don't see why some consider this unethical and abusive to the CL community. It's just arbitrage; same as in Foreign Exchange markets. It tends to pop up because values are just opinions and to forget that leads to misdirection.
Frankly, personally if I knew someone like this locally who I could call to dispose of old appliances etc. and get a little bit back for it, and who was trustworthy and I knew would do pickup, I wouldn't bother with CL even if I knew there was a difference.
Someone who appears trustworthy + guaranteed quick turnaround would be worth the difference in return for me - I've disposed of old appliances by paying a removal company to take them away on more than one occasion because I didn't want to deal with the hassle of something like CL even if it meant I might make some money back.
I think in the long run there's a lot of opportunity for repeat business there from people who don't need to make the most cash out of the sale as opposed to either make it quickly or just want to get rid of the item without fuss.
That's exactly what I was thinking reading the post. It's nice that he is able to make a living and support his family, but he does that on the back of people looking for things on craigslist without providing anything of value (besides maybe transportation). The bad part is that I'd assume people buying things of craigslist tend to be on the lower part of the income spectrum and he's charging them more money by "playing the market".
Does he actually tell people that he's just going to resell whatever he picks up? I'm sure there might be some people that are uncomfortable with that.
Plenty of people just want to get rid of stuff. They need the room or they need to move and they don't care what happens to it. If this no-one takes it it'll go to landfill.
He's providing a service to them. He takes the stuff away, and doesn't charge them to do so. He might even give them some money. (Compare that to hiring a dumpster / skip.)
I don't know what Americans throw in landfill but in England there's plenty of furniture or working electrical items that end up in landfill (or the modern equivalent).
But not if they were on craigslist in the beginning and apparently there are buyers. From what it seems to me, he just tries to be the fastest buyer rather than taking things that can't find buyers
