341–350 of 493 posts
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> 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?
Same reasons it's involved in medicine, housing, education, etc etc.
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 really like the idea of relative ratings. But that also amplifies a problem that exists with any rating: recency bias, or any sort of time bias. I change over time. An album that I loved when I was 15 could get a 1/5 from me today. Or a book that I hated in my teens, may now be my favorite. It's complicated.
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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.
Which is why founders should have a network where one creates good reads and sells to Amazon and then one of the others starts a better good reads right away. Then when founder A's handcuffs come off he goes and makes a new version of the most recent thing that sold to one of the FAANGs.
Goodreads' Otis Chandler in 2021 invested [0] in BookClub [1] ("building actionable learning cultures through books, for teams").
And Elizabeth Khuri [2] and Chandler both also invested in Looped [3] (a more engaged and interactive livestreaming event service for concerts, comedy and other entertainment)
[0]: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/otis-chandler
[1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bookclub
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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. Everything that gets bought gets sold as well. The founders of the companies are willfully and eagerly selling the companies they created. Who are you to ban it? Then you have to chain them to their desks and force them to try to dedicate the rest of their lives to the business.
this is a terrible argument.
Some people sell their kidneys. Some people sold their own children. Some people even sold themselves into slavery. Who are you to judge?
80% 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…
With all of the low quality reviews out there these days, even the idea of finding a quality review can’t get me back on the site.
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The thing is that it is a pretty easy to solve problem. Print advance copies with a QR code that contains a link to the publisher's site with a GUID in the params. The publisher would have a page, authenticated with the GUID, with authenticated links to private review pages. This allows for knowing the person had the advance copy. Just that line will kill 95% of review bombing. You can also use the publisher side to…
Why stop at that? Why not have every book contain a QR code (crypographically secure GUID) and you have to be an "authenticated buyer" in order to participate. The ones that go to libraries could either be tagged specially or have the reviews scrutinized / shadowbanned until vouched for. This started out as /s but now I just feel like all of my information and every daily habit is going to end up (sold) online anyway…
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> 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…
But right now we let the market consolidate to the point where major industries have 2-4 major players with 80-90% market share between them.
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> Unfortunately that's exactly why so many startups get bought. Everything that gets bought gets sold as well. The founders of the companies are willfully and eagerly selling the companies they created. Who are you to ban it? Then you have to chain them to their desks and force them to try to dedicate the rest of their lives to the business.
> Who are you to ban it? this is a terrible argument. Some people sell their kidneys. Some people sold their own children. Some people even sold themselves into slavery. Who are you to judge?
Or you have to force people to continue with their businesses, which is akin to trying to force an artist or athlete to continue to be at top level. You can't force that, no matter how many hackers agree with you.