Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 493 posts

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

#181

Post by jsmith99 »

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…

It's not just because humans are bad at distributions. I would rate almost all the books I read at least 3/5 because I pick my books carefully. There are plenty of terrible books deserving 1/5 but they are often obvious from a distance.

With eg movies a much greater investment is required to tell if it's terrible.

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

#182

Post by Curvature5868 »

hcal wrote: post #142
unreal37 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not advocating for banning M&As, but I think that could be addressed by only allowing acquisitions under specific bankruptcy conditions. Again, though, I'm not advocating for that position. I'd hate to spend part of my life building a business and not be able to cash out when the time comes for me to retire.

Is it possible for private companies to pay dividends? Let's say you retire and you own a portion of a small but thriving company. Could that company potentially provide you with dividends as a form of income?

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

#183

Post by ethbr0 »

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.

> Would stronger (and enforced) anti trust laws be a solution?

Stronger employee control and delayed decision-making would be a solution.

To take a spin at it:

- Any business that merges would be subject to two binding votes (x+2 & x+5 years) with "We wish to remain merged" or "We wish to spin off," voted upon by anyone who has been employed in the merged business at any time between the merger and vote (subject to some voting power apportionment, but resolutely not using share ownership)

- The federal government is obligated to perform an x+5 & x+10 year review of the merger's effect on the competitive landscape, with the power to forcibly unwind the merger

It would decrease valuations of M&A-targets, and decrease M&A activity, but I don't think anyone would argue that's intrinsically a bad thing in the modern competitive landscape.

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

#184

Post by afterburner »

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.

> that's exactly why so many startups get bought.

It's also why so many startups get started in the first place. Buyout being the goal.

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

#185

Post by Joker_vD »

paulddraper wrote: post #171
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…

> ban all M&A That makes about as much sense as banning marriage. M&A is fundamental and important.

> That makes about as much sense as banning marriage.

Banning marriage actually makes a lot of sense, according to some. Why is the state even involved in such private matters in the first place anyhow?

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

#186

Post by afterburner »

hospitalJail wrote: post #71
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…

The Modern Zelda reviews are a prime example of this. The non-industry people reviewing Zelda have 4 options, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10, 10/10. A 7/10 means the game was bad and you had a hard time finishing it, and won't be playing again. 8/10 means the game was also bad, but you had fun for a few minutes/hours. 9/10 means the game meet minimum expectations. 10/10 means you enjoyed the game, but there were countless flaws th…

> The non-industry people reviewing Zelda have 4 options, 7/10, 8/10, 9/10, 10/10.

Did you mean the industry people? Plenty of user reviews are 1/10. It's the industry guys that are always rating stuff 7+

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

#187

Post by somenits »

fsckboy wrote: post #138
somenits wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not confused. But you are introducing unnecessary concepts here. A firm needs to make some profit in the long run, whatever you want to call it, to be able to sustain investment. If there's too many firms in the market, that can be undermined. That's why you don't see five dry cleaners right next to each other in the same strip mall.

And your second paragraph fails to address my point too. I acknowledged that in the long run, the health of the industry could be restored by some of the firms failing. But that can take way too long, and in the meantime, all of them are capital-starved and unable to invest in improving their businesses.

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

#188

Post by wussboy »

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?

If the market can be relied upon to determine the winners, it must also be relied upon to determine the losers.

I support the "no M&A" policy.

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

#190

Post by sdfghswe »

tivert wrote: post #55
sdfghswe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that Amazon is concerned that a database is enough to threaten their business?

> 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…

> Didn't the GP already answer the question you asked of them?

You think that to start an Amazon competitor you need a book database?

Post reply on HN