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Goodreads has no incentive to be good

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Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#201

Post by classified »

veave wrote: post #27
hospitalJail wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I was so frustrated at how bad the book Atomic Habits was, (in comparison to Power of Habit). It felt like some 20 year old was explaining how to life a good life with all the experience 20 year olds have. Lots of idealistic ways to organize things. Lots of mental gymnastics to supposedly make you more productive. I did like the 'improve yourself 1% a day', but I did that with a spin bike and quickly got…

>Meanwhile Power of Habit was more like a pop-science book with the goal of teaching you brain science and apply it. I'd pay 50k-100k for that book, it has been revolutionary. I'm off all drugs, I can quit social media whenever I want(I'm only back because of LLMs), I quit video games, I made my evenings productive instead of hedonistic. Is it that good?

> I made my evenings productive instead of hedonistic.

My condolences.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#202

Post by BaseballPhysics »

epiccoleman wrote: post #84
hospitalJail wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I was so frustrated at how bad the book Atomic Habits was, (in comparison to Power of Habit). It felt like some 20 year old was explaining how to life a good life with all the experience 20 year olds have. Lots of idealistic ways to organize things. Lots of mental gymnastics to supposedly make you more productive. I did like the 'improve yourself 1% a day', but I did that with a spin bike and quickly got…

> I'm off all drugs, I can quit social media whenever I want(I'm only back because of LLMs), I quit video games, I made my evenings productive instead of hedonistic. Good god, how scary. Thanks for the warning!

Not sure if you're serious or sarcastic, but I completely agree. Productivity hacking culture needs to die a painful death. Life is about so much more than just maximizing output...

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#203

Post by ezekiel68 »

mandmandam wrote: post #12
prepend wrote: post #6

> Goodreads Cares about Engagement Not Accuracy Yes, of course. Accuracy doesn’t make money, engagement does. This is the problem with the current state of the internet. People forgot that engagement was just the path to accuracy but is much harder to measure. So people realized that they can increase engagement to make money.

> Accuracy doesn’t make money, engagement does. Accurate information creates a better society for everyone. Angry engaged people fed bullshit create a worse society for everyone. But yeah, the incentives are perverse, and the owner-class are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them perverse.

You seem to be highlighting how society should operate rather than how it (often) does operate.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#204

Post by beej71 »

senko wrote: post #171
matricaria wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Why would you need a list at all? If it's worth remembering, you'll remember you've read it, and if you want to refresh your memory what better than to reread?

My memory doesn't "iterate" very well. Ask me all the places I visited last year, and I'll fail to recall some of the big ones. But if you say the name of the place, of course I know I was there.

Same with books. I've had plenty of times where I'd start reading a book and then a chapter in recall it. It's just nice to have a list.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#205

Post by BaseballPhysics »

the_af wrote: post #30

I must be out of the loop: I never knew that Goodreads mattered at all. I don't know anybody who uses it. I understand fake reviews in Amazon are a problem: if I'm shopping there, I do look at the reviews, especially bad reviews to see if there is anything wrong with the product. I will disregard reviews that don't make sense and only pay attention to things that matter to me, but it's possible that I'll be influence…

> I must be out of the loop: I never knew that Goodreads mattered at all. I don't know anybody who uses it.

You're out of the loop.

Goodreads and Facebook groups are used heavily in the author and reading/fan communities. Heck, my wife is a Goodreads librarian and often helps out authors with issues (which are, unfortunately, incredibly common since Goodreads support is largely non-existent and yet another reason why the platform is horrible, probably due to to it being an effective monopoly in this space). My bet is, of the many people she knows in the community (both authors and readers), every single one is active on Goodreads.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#206

Post by _v7gu »

thenerdhead wrote: post #110

What gave it away? The fact that Amazon bought it, retired the API, and put a "Buy on Amazon" button on every book? Also majority of reviews are fake. Go look at any new Ryan Holiday book months before it is released. Obviously these authors and their publishing teams know how to game the system so more people end up buying the book. GoodReads has an incentive to sell books. It has no incentive to sell good books. Al…

I mean, Ryan Holiday actually published a book where he explains how he games the system via low effort news sites and fake controversies.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#207

Post by mhermher »

Paul_S wrote: 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.

For me, it's more of a database to keep track of books I want to read in the future. I can't read everything immediately after reading a recommendation or seeing it mentioned somewhere. Mostly I use goodreads to organize this list. It ends up getting into the "read" list after, but that part isn't as important. And when I am approaching an empty stack of books to read, I go on there and try to pop from the top of the stack on my "want to read" high priority list.

Also yeah, the recommendation system is pretty bad. I can't believe they can't do better with all the ratings data they have. I get recommendations externally, but track them in goodreads.

Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good

#209

Post by mandmandam »

ezekiel68 wrote: post #203
mandmandam wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Accuracy doesn’t make money, engagement does. Accurate information creates a better society for everyone. Angry engaged people fed bullshit create a worse society for everyone. But yeah, the incentives are perverse, and the owner-class are willing to do whatever it takes to keep them perverse.

You seem to be highlighting how society should operate rather than how it (often) does operate.

I think you might have missed the point.

Accurate information does create a better society for everyone, in this society and in any. It's like physics - cultural karma.

Angry engaged people fed bullshit do create a worse society for everyone, every time. Karma. Equal reaction.

That one of these options has been weaponized for profit and control is independent of those facts.

It's no secret that if we don't change how society operates, we're going to make life on this planet unbearable very quickly; and this is part of the reason why.|

Poverty, hunger, and inequality are rampant in America; as are the drug issues and mental health problems that go with them. This is part of the reason why.

Our money is spent subsidizing war and oil. This is part of the reason why.

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