Craigslist has continued to thrive over at least ten years of neglect and hostility towards developers as well as interaction design. They seem to disprove your claim.

It is rather blunt to assume so. Nearly every week we discuss whether Google can be defeated. Yet, you think that Craigslist cannot?

My point is that their closeness will be major factor in their failure.

EDIT: I don't buy Craigslist hype. To me, their service is poor. Outside the US, especially in the East Europe, there's a lot of better alternatives. There was a lot of discussions why they succeed. I point out how they're likely to fail.

I think a big part of this is the misattribution of the .org label combined with overly simple design. People believe that craigslist is altruistic and trustworthy because it has given the appearance that it can only just keep the lights on and pay the bills. A real company could afford a logo designer!

So they've gotten huge (not in number of employees), but they're behaving just as arrogantly.