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Goodreads has no incentive to be good

countercraft.substack.com

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Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like you are destroying the fabric of society.

Thank you. It feels so good to be recognised. All this time I was toiling away, trying to destroy the fabric of society but no one noticed or cared.

FWIW, I admire your dedication.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#152
post #10

Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. The recommendation system is a joke and is obviously used to promote nonsense instead of giving you personalised recommendations.

They have further hamstrung it recently by having it that non-moderators (or some euphemism for someone with such rights) can no longer add new books. I regularly read weird stuff not in their system and adding this extra barrier is disastrous. I still use it...well, can I say I still use it if the last time I tried to add a book I couldn't? ... I just checked back - that was a month ago, and I even made a forum post…

Yes that is the most painful thing on the entire platform. And supposedly the only reason it exists is because Amazon the owner doesn't want to deal with copyright issues of the photographs of the book covers. Antiquarian bookshops might have a lot of books that never have been categorised in this manner and to read mostly niche stuff and essentially being told nope you can't keep track of this read the 2023 best seller instead, kills culture.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#153
post #52

> Few people read reviews whether it is Amazon, Yelp, or anywhere else. I do. IMHO, star ratings are close to pointless. They are deeply flawed even without spam, advertising, or moral outrage votes. And especially for goods that depend on a subjective reception - such as books. First, grading patterns are various. Many use either 1 or 5. For others, 4 is already a failing grade. Second, I don't care what the average…

Oftentimes I find that the written reviews are just a plot summary with little analysis or opinion

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why people like it so much. My aunt-in-law is high pressuring me to use it. I have my library listing all the books I checked out. I have a pdf/epub reader that has a history of the books I read(although a new phone will probably wipe that out). For a while, I was merely writing down my books in a dedicated notebook, but I realized that it didn't really matter, if a book was important, I remembered it. I…

But you don't just track books you've read, you also track books you want to read, which is much harder to remember. I also tag them to indicate if I already own them and in what format (physical, epub, audio). Saves me from purchasing duplicates when I'm at the used book store.

> you also track books you want to read

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku

I know exactly what books I want to read.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#155
post #104

I anything actually good anymore? - Goodreads: Broken recommendation system, meh UI, review wars - Google Search: Pointless - Reddit: Overtly user-hostile, poor UX, tiktokified - YouTube: Mainstream, ad-riddled, tiktokified - Yelp: Cluttered-UI, favors jerks, hostile to businesses - Gmail: Oh yeah we're gonna delete your emails if you don't log in after a while - Netflix: Shrinking catalogue, worse quality shows - In…

I have to disagree with YouTube. Yes, theres a lot of garbage on there, but I've managed to curate a collection of subscriptions that make _extremely_ high quality videos. Even the reccomendation system thats so often criticised here has regularly served me new channels that are right up my ally. I get more value from YT than most other sites on the net (with the exception of HN, obviously)

While I also think YouTube has great content, their war on adblockers annoys me very much.

Also, YouTube Short was not a great addition. It entices garbage content in my opinion. There is a reason I’m on YouTube and not on TikTok.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#156
post #10

Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. The recommendation system is a joke and is obviously used to promote nonsense instead of giving you personalised recommendations.

> Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken.

Why would you need a service to keep track on what you read? I have a text file with a list of book and some notes about every book. Works perfectly for me.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#158

I anything actually good anymore? - Goodreads: Broken recommendation system, meh UI, review wars - Google Search: Pointless - Reddit: Overtly user-hostile, poor UX, tiktokified - YouTube: Mainstream, ad-riddled, tiktokified - Yelp: Cluttered-UI, favors jerks, hostile to businesses - Gmail: Oh yeah we're gonna delete your emails if you don't log in after a while - Netflix: Shrinking catalogue, worse quality shows - In…

I feel like this is overly cynical. Facebook is still the best social network for certain age groups. Instagram (and Facebook) engagement is dropping but it's (they're) still one of the best mediums for getting the word out about events (for me anyway). Reddit is fine as long as old-reddit still works, though with losing API access the mobile story is about to suck.

Facebook is still a good social network so long as you limit it to friend you personally know only. Block marketplace and all groups. Use it to keep up on those distant friends and family that you are not ready to leave out of your life completely even though you don't get together often (that is they live far away from you so you can't visit in person often)

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#159
post #10

Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. The recommendation system is a joke and is obviously used to promote nonsense instead of giving you personalised recommendations.

> Goodreads is only good (eh, decent?) as a database of books you've read. All the other functionality is pointless and or broken. Why would you need a service to keep track on what you read? I have a text file with a list of book and some notes about every book. Works perfectly for me.

I'm learning now that this is even something that people keep track of.

This next section isn't meant to be shitty: but what's the purpose of even keeping track of that? I've read hundreds, maybe thousands of books over my life and don't have a list of them anywhere, nor can I see a use for that.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#160
> Goodreads Cares about Engagement

It's not working for me. I have two books of my own, and still, I never go there.

AFAIK Amazon acquisition didn't ruin Zappos. IMDb is more garbage than it was before, but I still use it. But Goodreads: nope, it was too close to what they already did on book selling, so they killed it. Slowly.

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