Can anyone from Curbit confirm whether this will be an issue? It might be as simple as telling people to put the items in their front yard, rather than on the footpath.
The other big use case though is reporting stuff that others have dumped. Using the app makes no statement that you put the stuff there, and we in no way are trying to encourage people to break the law :)
Maybe councils would be prepared to pay for the "reporting stuff that others have dumped" aspect? If not, they might pay for a "report stuff that needs our attention" aspect: using Curbit's infrastructure to provide a stream of pictures of pot holes, broken signs, etc. with attached time/GPS coordinates?
I believe (on faith) that local charities make better use of my stuff. My "go to" charity is the local services for the blind, because an ex-gf works for eye surgeons.
Though it'd be more convenient, I'm loathe to give to Goodwill (greedy execs, bad labor relations), Salvation Army (homophobes, jesus freaks), Red Cross (misrepresenting how donations are used).
I'm cool with Habitat for Humanity.
[I live in the USA.]
This basically happens organically anyway. There are teams of pickers who come around just before council pickups and take away anything of value (and lots of stuff of no value too). All that gets left to be collected by the council is the absolute rubbish (rotting mattresses, etc).
What I want to know with these sort of startups is how do they plan on making money?
That's illegal too, someone was recently prosecuted for this. Councils own anything put out for council cleanup. They make money selling and recycling this stuff.
EDIT: My council (like many others) don't enforce this rule. They do come down hard on illegal dumping though.
Collect stats on the number and type of items picked up per council. If you get any traction, tell the councils it will cost X$ to keep the service running in their area.
Having recently necessitated the service, it is very expensive to store or move even medium sized items in this situation, as local and national movers/storage companies are well aware of the situation and will fleece customers with outrageous fees and even vulturous customer service (oh you didn't pick up our call? +$20 reschedule fee..).
If 1) they can make themselves accessible to a large number of college students and 2) they provide a smoother user experience then craigslist and co (possibly by partnering with University housing associations cough cough) I can see this being incredibly successful.
Gumtree (craigslist equivalent in AU) 'for free' works far better.
Compared to classifieds in general, it can be much simpler to use, because money isn't changing hands.
Perhaps you'll have more impact worldwide with this, it's never a bad idea to let ones enjoy what is a now a burden for others.
Not sure what's in play in Australia, but in the U.S. there are more than a few individuals (entrepreneurs) who drive around looking for "curbed" articles...
These are gathered and added to second-hand shop inventories, for resale...
If that's true in Australia it's something you might want to be aware of...you might consider a way of ensuring that those interested in an article get a fair shot at it...just a customer satisfaction thing...
Good luck!
I'm in South Australia. In my home area, I can call for one pick-up per financial year, totalling 2 cubic metres. In my office area, there's a period once per quarter where you can put items out for collection.
There are people who drive around with a cage trailer grabbing recyclable items, some for personal use, some for resale.
Besides these "official" options, a few people use Freecycle (mailing list, bit annoying) and others use Gumtree (like Craigslist).
I am amazed at how low in value the pickers will go. I have thrown out stuff with almost zero value and they have taken it away. My wife and I are always amazed at what gets taken by them.
Where I live that seems to be the case...no one cares...
That is, unless local (city) codes legislate differently...
Obviously however, user privacy and encouraging the core use of the app is the primary concern, and we won't pursue any method of monetisation that will jeopardise that.
Good luck with the project.
They pick up your stuff, you choose a charity, they sell the item to someone else and the proceeds go to the charity. As it turns out, most charities want cash not my old bookshelves but (the confusingly named) Community Thrift Store sorts it all out.
With Curbit we're really trying to create infrastructure for one way gifting that takes the weight of organisational weight off the donor. There is nothing stopping charities from picking up items listed on Curbit though.
An idea, to take or leave: a very active niche for this kind of thing is parents of young children. Very young kids (babies/toddlers) in particular churn through a lot of "stuff" by growing out of it before it wears out. Parents are very active on a range of Facebook groups trading this stuff (though not usually for free, just cheap). In fact the groups are so active that I know people using them daily, and the biggest issue with offloading stuff is posting are lost in the noise. If you're looking for a nice to focus on this is a strong one.