Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it • Hacker News Board

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#81

Post by tivert » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #67

tivert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you think that Amazon is concerned that a database is enough to threaten their business? Didn't the GP already answer the question you asked of them? >> It was a purely defensive move to prevent anyone else from acquiring or partnering with Goodreads, because their database of books and reviews could be used to instantly start competing with Amazon's book business. Amazon snuffed out that threat of competiti…

On Goodreads, the Buy button allows you to buy from: - Amazon - Audible - Barnes & Noble - AbeBooks - Walmart - Libraries

> On Goodreads, the Buy button allows you to buy from:

Interestingly, 3/6 of the places you list are owned by Amazon.

And all those options are hidden behind a menu. I checked a few books on that site, the button itself is always either "Buy on Kindle" or "Buy on Amazon" (if Kindle isn't available).

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#82

Post by pessimizer » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

NelsonMinar wrote: post #27

pessimizer wrote: post #8

This article starts off pretending to be a criticism of Amazon, and this is highlighted in the headline. After a few vague critical gestures towards Amazon in the first four paragraphs, it gets to its real point: Goodreads, a social network, has woefully inadequate censorship, which can lead to financial losses to authors and publishers. According the the WaPo, Amazon's crime with Goodreads seems to be that it hasn't…

Preventing fraud, not censorship. Writing a fake review of a book that hasn't even been finished written yet is fraud.

A review of a book that hasn't been published that explains why I don't think the subject is appropriate for a book, how I don't like the author, and what I think about the author's previous opinions about the subject isn't "fake" or "fraud," it's discussion that virtually all intelligent people can handle.

"Fake" and "fraud" are words that you're adding to the article.

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edit:

I feel like it's important to mention that the only reason this "review bombing" is painted as bad is because it convinces people. This is yet another case of (calling for) censoring speech because it is convincing. It convinced the Eat, Pray, Love author not to publish at all.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#83

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

riazrizvi wrote: post #68

It's a good sign to me that the Washington Post, a Jeff Bezos company, is able to criticize a Jeff Bezos business.

[deleted]

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#84

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

tecleandor wrote: post #45

fastball wrote: post #12

Eh, Goodreads has always suffered from the same problem that plagues every other review system which uses "score out of X" ranking. Humans just aren't very good at ranking things on a normal distribution, so you invariably end up with every item (books in this case) being ranked somewhere in the 3.5-4.5 range (since Goodreads is out of 5). For IMDB the rankings all hover around 8ish. When in reality the average book…

Seems like this is culturally different for some things. And corporations can influence too. I have a friend who has four restaurants in Tokyo, and I've been several times there. If you keep attention to the restaurant reviews in Google Maps, Japanese people is very hard. They'd go like "The food is great, incredible service, surprising flavors, very good experience, best Spanish food I've had in a long time..." and…

> I rarely go to a place with a score of less than a 4/5

I have a simpler heuristic. I ignore all customer ratings entirely, and refuse to leave any.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#85

Post by fsckboy » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

teamspirit wrote: post #22

crazygringo wrote: post #6

Goodreads wasn't "the future of book reviews", it was a good review site that might have innovated great new things or might not have at all. But regardless, Amazon should never have been allowed to acquire it -- it was incredibly anti-competitive. Amazon never wanted to do anything with Goodreads at all -- as demonstrated by the fact that it hasn't done anything. It was a purely defensive move to prevent anyone else…

Unfortunately that's exactly why so many startups get bought. Not to become part of the parent company's business, no, just not to become a competitor later. Would stronger (and enforced) anti trust laws be a solution? I believe businesses would just lie and say they are going to be part of the business but then just bury them anyway.

> I believe businesses would just lie and say they are going to be part of the business but then just bury them anyway.

That's where my pet antitrust solution succeeds where others fail: ban all M&A. Companies only engage in mergers to consolidate market share, but their market share consolidation (i.e. monopolization) not only decreases competition, but also comes at the expense of employees and customers of the acquired businesses. Nobody wins except the monopolist, and monopolies are already bad, so why help them?

(I think of monopoly and market concentration on a gradient scale, from a little bit monopolized to completely monopolized, so don't get stuck on a monopoly being a single entity)

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#86

Post by hinkley » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

teamspirit wrote: post #22

crazygringo wrote: post #6

Goodreads wasn't "the future of book reviews", it was a good review site that might have innovated great new things or might not have at all. But regardless, Amazon should never have been allowed to acquire it -- it was incredibly anti-competitive. Amazon never wanted to do anything with Goodreads at all -- as demonstrated by the fact that it hasn't done anything. It was a purely defensive move to prevent anyone else…

Unfortunately that's exactly why so many startups get bought. Not to become part of the parent company's business, no, just not to become a competitor later. Would stronger (and enforced) anti trust laws be a solution? I believe businesses would just lie and say they are going to be part of the business but then just bury them anyway.

A lot of my disillusionment with startups come from this. Being lied to repeatedly by different owners about how selling should be our goal to really start to win, only for the purchase to be the moment where we really start to lose.

It breaks something precious.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#87

Post by atlasunshrugged » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

AlbertCory wrote: post #29

> But Goodreads allows any user, not just those who’ve received advance copies, to leave ratings months before books are released. Authors who’ve become targets of review-bombing campaigns say there’s little moderation or recourse to report the harassment. Writers dealing with stalkers have pointed to the same problem. "Problem": chicken-and-egg problem. Until it's actually published, there's little or no way for a r…

That implies people will read the reviews rather than just seeing something with a star rating lower than a 4 and automatically discount it (or that it won't be dramatically deprioritized in Amazon's recommendations because of it).

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#88

Post by registeredcorn » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #18

I interviewed with Goodreads in 2012. If there's one thing I learned it's that when you give people weird gimmick problems ("How many Starbucks are there in Manhattan?") in an 8 hour interview that was supposed to be 2 hours, you're going to produce an awful lot of ill will when you reject people because they're "too technical". The whole thing was the most bizarre interview experience of my life.

I'd love to hear a bit more about the interview, if you're willing to share. Weird interviews are always fun to listen to! :)

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#89

Post by weego » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #6

Goodreads wasn't "the future of book reviews", it was a good review site that might have innovated great new things or might not have at all. But regardless, Amazon should never have been allowed to acquire it -- it was incredibly anti-competitive. Amazon never wanted to do anything with Goodreads at all -- as demonstrated by the fact that it hasn't done anything. It was a purely defensive move to prevent anyone else…

Goodreads was the future of aggressively biased people shouting their opinions to other people with no discernable value in theirs over others.

Rose tinted view.

Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it

#90

Post by sidibe » Mon, Jul 03, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

My absolutely inane contribution I'm sharing only because it contrasts with everyone else commenting:

I think Goodreads is fine, I do glance at it before any book I read to see what kind of reviews it has.

The Amazon site I used all the time that sucks now is IMDb.