• Among Meta's many apps and services, Facebook Marketplace has quickly grown to be my favorite.

• It's a great way to buy good furniture for an affordable price. I prefer it to eBay or Craigslist.

• One Facebook Marketplace user told me she thinks buying second-hand adds "soul" to her home.

Meta has a trove of products and services that billions of people use daily, including Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp, but one, in particular, has grown to become my favorite.

And it's not the metaverse: While Meta's recent pivot to the metaverse has been the subject of scrutiny from investors and the corporate world, I'm convinced the company's best product is Facebook Marketplace.

I've mostly stopped using Facebook as a social network, but I visit facebook.com nearly every day to check out Marketplace.

Marketplace is a platform on Facebook that allows anyone with a profile to buy and sell goods.

It's free to use, but Facebook takes a 5% cut whenever a seller ships an item. Meta doesn't share how much money it makes from the service, though last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that more than 1 billion people visit Marketplace each month.

Recently, Zuckerberg said Facebook Marketplace benefited from supply-chain issues that made it hard for people to buy new items from stores without long wait times.

It's a great way to buy high-quality furniture for an affordable price, and it's become my go-to source for decorating my new apartment.

According to the EPA, Americans throw out more than 12 million tons of furniture annually. The problem is likely to worsen as purchases of cheaply-made furniture have escalated since the pandemic.

Source: The New York Times

By using Facebook Marketplace, I know I'm helping to keep furniture out of landfills - and I prefer using Marketplace for furniture over eBay or Craigslist.

Unlike on other selling sites, a user on Facebook Marketplace must have a Facebook profile to use the service, meaning I can attach a face to my interactions.