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Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
231–240 of 493 posts
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#232Eh, 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…
Elo/Trueskill sounds like a solid idea.
When you go to rate a book the system asks you if it was better or worse (maybe same) then a book of you previously read closest in rating or some hidden matchmaking rating (MMR).
I think having books having both a personal and global score would be nice as well.
I don't think it would be possible for someone to change their rating but that may be a feature.
I also don't think this solves recommendation though it may be useful as a feature.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#233Earlier 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?
> Company A is 6 days away from going out of business...But then Company B agrees to buy them for $1...Ban it? versus scenario 2, Company A is profitable. Company B is smaller, but up and coming. An announcement is made that A will buy B and everything will be better. Layoffs ensue, product lines are dropped, employees and customers are very unhappy, but prices and profits are up. Since scenario 2 is quite common tod…
> that's a better way to run markets.
I'm highly skeptical that heavily restricting buying and selling of companies in general will be a better way to run a market when it seems your goal is to prevent monopolies (or put another way, ensure competition).
Laser focused policies work for a short periods but tend to be worked around quickly as the thing they regulate falls out of favor in lieu of something functionally the same but different enough it doesn't match. Blanket policies tend to stifle the market in general, causing other problems. Rather than assuming that any specific law actually "solves" the problem, we'd probably be much better off setting criteria we're trying to match and and reassessing regulations regularly to try to meet that criteria. Anything unresponsive will be routed around.
The real problem is that we have things that do that (the SEC and FTC) and they're broken. We should fix them, not swap to a sledgehammer as the only tool available.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> sometimes acquisitions are done exactly because the buyer is interested in the other company's IP
How many of those cases produce an outcome that is beneficial to the public?
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can still go bankrupt and company buys the assets without employees ever losing pay. Many bankruptcies work this way.
this sounds like it was dreamt up by a bunch of lawyers trying to get themselves more work. there's a lot more paperwork and bullshit involved in going into bankruptcy than just being bought out.
the point is not the thin edge case of bankruptcy vs merger, the point is that the fat part of the market would have been better off if Instagram was competing with Facebook, not part of Facebook, if video streaming services competed for eyeballs instead of being consolidated under Google who already controls eyeballs, etc.
little fish companies will be less likely to go out of business, and the economy will be more agile when they do if we stop allowing these big fat catfish to swallow everything in their pond.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#236Goodreads 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.
Unfortunately that's exactly why so many startups get bought.
Unfortunately that's exactly why so many startups are founded.
I can't say what things are like today, but in Seattle in the 2010's, it seemed like 90% of the startups existed solely to get bought by Microsoft.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean like what you're doing right now?
You do realize that's both an ad hominem argument and an admission he's correct, right?
First, it's not an argument, it's an observation, as there's no argument the be had. Why? Because...
Second, the observation is that you can literally characterize every online discussion forum that way. It's a pointless comment that borders on tautology. Put people in a space together to share their thoughts, and some of them will end up behaving badly.
Third, it was an observation of the silliness and, frankly, hypocrisy of simultaneously complaining about the behaviour of shouting baseless opinions on discussion forums by shouting a baseless opinion on a discussion forum.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think GoodReads has any real alternative. Amazon knew that. That’s why they bought it.
It’s been 10 years since Amazon bought it. Maybe it’s time for alternatives to go online.
As others have pointed out, alternatives do exist. They just lack the network effect.
I've recently moved to Bookwyrm.
I was able to move import my Goodreads list, although many books were missing. Any new books i'm reading, go on Bookwyrm first. I had to add the ISBN details etc. for some. It's a bit of work initially, but atleast i feel my contribution is going to a non-walled garden.
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https://joinbookwyrm.com/ - Social Reading and Reviewing, Decentralized
>BookWyrm is a social network for tracking your reading, talking about books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next. Federation allows BookWyrm users to join small, trusted communities that can connect with one another, and with other ActivityPub services like Mastodon and Pleroma.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#239Now Bookwyrm is the future of book reviews. Because it's FOSS and federalised with ActivityPub protocol.
Came here to say the same. Bookwyrm is a good example of how the fediverse architecture is more profound than social media (and definitely more profound than mastodon that is in the end of the day a twitter imitator). People may tire of social media inanity, whether it is centralized or decentralized. But there will always be communities that want to exchange information, thoughts, feelings, whether that is about mov…
One caveat for new users is that it requires some effort to use it. In many cases, if you're reading non mainstream books then it's on you to add those books and ISBN details + cover page etc.
You're essentially contributing to the site content, but hopefully it's worth it.
My profile is here, as an example: https://bookwyrm.social/user/sidmitra
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#240Earlier 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?
If a blanket ban runs into this problem, what about a "ban by default"? Basically just flip the script so it doesn't require a denial based on circumstances but instead an approval based on circumstances.
This doesn’t work in practice due to typically severe time constraints. You cannot expect a business that has 6 days of life left to wait for such an approval process. These things never happen fast.