✦ IN LOVING MEMORY ✦
The Curb
(8000 BCE – 2025 CE)
Silicon Valley Finally Solves "Putting Couch Outside"; Grandmother's Method Of "Just Putting It Outside" Called "Unscalable"
Silicon Valley Finally Solves "Putting Couch Outside"; Grandmother's Method Of "Just Putting It Outside" Called "Unscalable"
Above: The curb in its natural habitat, moments before disruption. The couch was taken in 4 minutes by a neighbor who required no app, subscription, or badge.
The Curb, beloved neighborhood institution and humanity's oldest platform for giving things away for free, has died at age 10,000. Cause of death: disruption, according to a press release from a Public Benefit Corporation currently requesting your credit card.
Born circa 8000 BCE when the first human placed a slightly-used stone tool outside their dwelling, the Curb enjoyed a long career facilitating frictionless exchange. For millennia, its model remained elegantly simple: someone puts thing down, someone else picks thing up. No login. No subscription. No bump algorithm.
The Curb is survived by siblings The Stoop, The Sidewalk, and The Increasingly Obsolete Practice of Knocking On Your Neighbor's Door. It was preceded in death by The Village Commons and Eye Contact.
"We've reimagined the Curb," announced the Buy Nothing Project, unveiling a subscription model that solves the age-old problem of giving things away for free: namely, that it was too free. The app promises to make giving "faster, easier, and more secure" — protecting your half-empty shampoo bottles from cyber threats.
Man who left couch on curb is now referred to as "legacy user." His grandmother's method has been deprecated, deemed "unscalable" by product managers who required three Figma boards to redesign typing "FREE - U HAUL."
The Curb had zero subscribers. Zero data breaches. Took no VC money. Still worked. But it failed to monetize its user base, and for this it could not be forgiven.
Memorial service on the sidewalk outside 847 Oak Street. Leave a broken lamp in tribute. No app required. No badge provided. The service is free. It has always been free. That was the whole point.
"Enjoy the abundance already around you," the email concluded, before asking for $4.99/month to access said abundance. The abundance has terms of service. The abundance auto-renews.
The sidewalk. But reimagined.
✨ Bump your garbage • ✨ Subscriber badge • ✨ Enterprise encryption for yoga mats
Can you identify which giving features are free and which require premium? Spoiler: the answer may disturb you.
Click to "bump" your listing. Watch your sad mattress outrank your neighbor's. Experience the future of giving.
Your listing: "Stained Mattress (FREE)" — Currently invisible to 99.7% of users
Your neighbor saw you give away that lamp. WITHOUT ENCRYPTION.
Upgrade to GiveShield™ — military-grade security for kindness.
Calculate the true cost of your generosity. How much per item to give things away for free?
Click buzzwords you've seen in giving-economy emails. Get 5 in a row to win!
Basic "thank you" — Free DEPRECATED
Enhanced Gratitude™ — $2.99/mo
Enterprise Gratitude Suite — Contact Sales
Enter item received. Select sincerity level. Get AI-generated thank-you of escalating intensity.
Two identical listings. One has a badge. Which would you respond to?
RESULTS: Nobody cares about the badge except badge owners
Based on 1,247 responses
You have a broken vacuum. Choose your path: App or Door?
NeighborBlock™ creates a digital barrier between you and human connection.
✅ Never wave again ✅ Replace small talk with notifications
Select features for your giving app. Watch your valuation climb. End with a TechCrunch headline.
5 seconds to identify each item. Categories: "Is That A Lamp Or A Crime Scene?"
Our algorithm determines if you need an app or should just put it on the curb.
Dec 29: Earlier version stated curb born 8000 BCE. We received 47 emails from archaeologists. We stand by our reporting.
Dec 29: Article called subscriber badge "pointless." The badge is worth exactly $4.99/month to those who purchase it. We regret the error.
absolutely nobody:
Buy Nothing Project: "what if the curb... but you had to pay for it? 🤯"