While I understand Bezos is not Amazon (and vice versa), am I the only one grinning at the irony of this coming from The Washington Post?
Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
241–250 of 493 posts
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#242Goodreads 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…
The outcome we got is probably in the middle, badness-wise.
Better would be an independent Goodreads with incentives to find features that fight spam and such.
But it's hard to imagine them being able to make much money doing that, and them going under would be worse.
And honestly I'd MUCH rather have a Goodreads that Amazon does nothing with than a Goodreads that chased growth from VC money or PE or whatever to try to turn into another retail site and abandoned the "your reading history" angle.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#243What happened to Book Depository was disgusting.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#244Eh, 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…
As much as the IMDB rankings are obviously gamed (especially when a movie or series just came out) I find the ratings fairly accurate over time, a 7+ is usually pretty decent to great for 8+, ratings of 6 are usually pretty average and 5 and below are truly awful.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What M&A are you familiar with that they can typically happen in a 6 day timeframe?
I know this is already a stressed straw man in the first place but M&A are aren't a short simple process anyway. Adding some oversight isn't going to change that.
Yes there are tradeoffs to more regulation vs total anarchy/free market. That doesn't mean they're not worth it. "Good" is not the enemy of "perfect" and all.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#246What happened to Book Depository was disgusting.
what happened to them?
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#24780% of reviews being "got the ebook for free before release in exchange for a very honest review" or "here're my 10000 words thoughts on spoiler spoiler spoiler" and overuse of goddamn inline gifs everywhere made the review section unreadable. It's more like a social network with gamification of book reviews. Looking at a random book: 4.36 stars, 74 ratings, 28 reviews. Release date: 18. July 2023 (in 15 days) No com…
Not to mention reviewers with 3k+ reviews. Who in their right mind properly read and review 3k books?
WTF. I spent 10 years in jail reading endlessly and only managed about 900 in total. And I had LITERALLY nothing else to do.
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#248Goodreads 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…
Amazon's inshittification of everything continues. They also own AbeBooks, have their own cargo airline, Twitch, Audible, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Kindle, Ring, Whole Foods, IMDb, Zappos, Egghead, the late lamented DPReview, and a few others. > incredibly anti-competitive. A description of Amazon in general.
Whaaat I didn't know they owned AbeBooks. I love AbeBooks. I wonder how much of a cut they take from booksellers?
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Devils advocate; Is it not possible that Nintendo just makes good games? They spend a lot of time on development, don't rush things, the trailers are honest about gameplay and what to expect. I can understand it's not your cup of tea or arguments that their online service is shit (it is) but reviewing a video game in isolation, many of them seem to be good games objectively. Games that don't appeal to the average CoD…
Nah, you can see it on subreddits as people discuss the game. Complaining about a few enemies, copypaste world, etc... Its not a 10/10, but it will still be reviewed like this. Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then? Don't get me wrong, I religiously play all the zelda's and find ways to enjoy them. I am under Nintendo's spell, but I also know these are the…
> Imagine you got rid of the Zelda skins and Zelda name, released it on Xbox. What would it get then?
You're right, but to be fair sort of 'reskin and re-rate' test would decimate the reviews of most sequels, remakes, adaptations, etc. Not just in video games, but movies, books, etc. Would Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy have been half as culturally relevant if it weren't standing on the shoulders of a very popular series of books?
Re: Goodreads was the future of book reviews, then Amazon bought it
#250Earlier 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…
Didn't the GP already answer the question you asked of them? Do you really that the question was asked in good faith? I know, I know, HN guidelines, but that question was asked to rephrase the question in overly simplistic terms, willfully ignoring that there is more to Goodreads than a mere DB.
It pains me to learn that I'm so dumb you can't even conceive I'm asking in good faith.