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

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

#131

Post by GTP »

londons_explore wrote: post #116
fsckboy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acq…

You could have other restrictions on mergers... For example, "All IP (trademarks, copyright, patents) from one of the two merged companies gets released to the public" Or perhaps "Anyone with contractual obligations to one of the merged companies is released from those obligations". Both of those would be half way to just dissolving one of the companies and re-hiring the staff by the other company to release a simila…

> "All IP (trademarks, copyright, patents) from one of the two merged companies gets released to the public"

This sounds very extreme to me, sometimes acquisitions are done exactly because the buyer is interested in the other company's IP. This would be a showstopper even in the cases where the buyer really wants to use the IP it is going to aquire.

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

#132

Post by zeroonetwothree »

fsckboy wrote: post #85
teamspirit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acq…

This would reduce consumer value quite a bit in some cases. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

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

#133

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

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…

> I just give you two books that you've read and you tell me which is better.

I can't wait to compare The Pickwick Papers against The Unfolding of Language.

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

#134

Post by tooltower »

fsckboy wrote: post #85
teamspirit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acq…

I've actually thought about this. But there are cases when mergers can help customers. E.g. when a vertical merger happens, that can absorb some of the profit margins between a supplier and manufacturer. Ideally, regulators should analyze the market for problematic dynamics.

But I agree that the vast majority of mergers that make the news are not good for consumers.

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

#135

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #84
tecleandor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#136

Post by cratermoon »

deanCommie wrote: post #39
garciansmith wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish news organizations would not give direct quotes when pure marketing nonsense was written. Just say something like "Amazon did not give us any substantive comment on the matter."

I wish people also learned some critical reading: Amazon spokesperson Ashely Vanicek said that " " Is journalistically neutral. Amazon was asked about what we wrote. Here's what they said. You decide if you believe us, or Amazon. I see nothing wrong with this, unless the headline of this story was "Goodreads' accelerated mission in delighting customers with the help of Amazon’s resources and technology.”

It's not "Is journalistically neutral". It's being a purveyor of propaganda. Just like when journalists quote cops using CopSpeak. It lets the interested party defined the terms of the debate. By constraining the terms, it can become literally impossible to say some things.

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

#137

Post by RoyGBivCap »

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…

Full disclosure, I'm an author who has self published a few things on Amazon and setup author stuff on amazon and goodreads.

>as demonstrated by the fact that it hasn't done anything.

There are links between the two. You can buy my books on amazon (the dropdown supports other vendors) from their Goodreads pages.

But to your point about anticompetitive, I completely agree.

Why are corporations even allowed to just buy other corporations, at all?

A shitty bank bought my bank and promptly made everything about it shittier. Why is this even allowed at all? Companies buying other companies is about the most fundamentally anti-competitive thing there is.

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

#138

Post by fsckboy »

somenits wrote: post #118
fsckboy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acq…

There is an optimal number of firms in competition with each other. It could be that for a particular industry, 10 firms means everyone is losing money and unable to make new investments, while 8 firms means that there's a healthy amount of profit that can sustain R&D and growth. Sure, eventually it might all work out as firms go bankrupt or go into a new business, but you can lose decades in waiting that out. Also,…

> 10 firms means everyone is losing money and unable to make new investments, while 8 firms means that there's a healthy amount of profit that can sustain R&D and growth.

don't confuse economic profit with accounting profit: the promise/goal/benefit of competitive markets is that economic profit goes to zero. (quickest way to describe the difference is, there are dry cleaners dotting the landscape in competition with each other, they make income which pays the owner's living including saving for retirement, kids college fund, etc. That's accounting profit. That's not economic profit, which is why you don't see VCs and investment banks investing in dry cleaning startups.)

Another important aspect of competitive markets is that weak companies die, and new companies enter, what Schumpeter called creative destruction. The 10 firms "losing money" is 10 firms competing, some of whom will fail. The 8 firms making healthy profits with fat (and lazy) R&D departments is attractive for disruption.

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

#139

Post by RoyGBivCap »

biggoodwolf wrote: post #120
abc_lisper wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this not be reversed. Force amazon to spin it out?

And who would do that? Even if technically possible, there is no one willing to do it.

FTC, if they weren't captured.

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

#140

Post by itsrobforreal »

unreal37 wrote: post #126
fsckboy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acq…

Company A is 6 days away from going out of business. They will shut their doors. All employees will lose their jobs. All customers will lose access to whatever Company A does that they find helpful. But then Company B agrees to buy them for $1 so that they continue running. Pays the employees, and continues running the service for customers. Ban it?

Yes, absolutely. Company B would have to compromise the service and change the rules.

Company B can instead spin up its own business and ask Company A to advertise for them, but anything else is just selling out users.

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