Goodreads has no incentive to be good
countercraft.substack.com
Goodreads has no incentive to be good
1–10 of 245 posts
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#2This seems focused on their review system which is fine of them to focus on. They sell books (through Amazon/Kindle) so I don't expect their own reviews to be great.
Unrelated to the reviews the app is slow and crashes often. They use dark-ish patterns to remove support for logging in with Google and completely removed it from the mobile app so I deleted the mobile app (which can't be used offline anyway) and only use the site on my phone.
All that said, I still like it more than other ones I've tried and the social element is nice too. I enjoy seeing what Internet friends are reading and I've found some good books from it. For that I wish more folks would use it. You can find my Goodreads in my HN profile.
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#3It's the same with IMDB, isn't it? Toxic subgroups and communities 1-star bombing movies that haven't even come out yet. The wikipage on review bombing doesn't even list Goodreads but has many examples from IMDB: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_bomb#Films,_television_...
So what could Goodreads do differently? It's true that the owners do as little as possible with the site, but that also means that overall the scoring system has very little impact. Would you trust it?
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#4Typical plug anytime Goodreads is mentioned that Storygraph is trying to do similar and being actively developed.
I still use Goodreads because it gives me notifications of new releases, but, aside from that Storygraph does the job well.
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#5One of the good things about sites like Goodreads is that they are a great source for long winded rants.
I'm someone who likes reading a good rant or complaint. I'm not sure why that is but I find them very entertaining.
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#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.
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#7/r/badreads is full of funny examples of how bad goodreads can be
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#8I've found Goodreads incredibly useful for discovering books and keeping track of them. Def need to read between the lines with reviews, esp. if there is a polarizing topic like mentioned in the article (glorifying Russia with ongoing Ukraine conflict). I recently read a book about Francisco de Orellana's exploration of the Amazon River in the 16th century - many reviews upset that the author wasn't using every other word to call the Spanish evil conquering colonists.
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#9Typical plug anytime Goodreads is mentioned that Storygraph is trying to do similar and being actively developed. https://thestorygraph.com I still use Goodreads because it gives me notifications of new releases, but, aside from that Storygraph does the job well.
Second this. Storygraph is great and has a ton potential. It just needs a bit more development put into it to match Goodreads minus the bad parts. I wish had the "plus" subscription tier set at $10/yr not $49/yr. I'd definitely donate that much, but $49 is a lot in majority of the world.
Re: Goodreads has no incentive to be good
#10Goodreads 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.