The article is a bit strange. Two different things are mixed there - goodreads as such, and generic social media issues (unreasoable dislikes, paid reviews etc). I like goodreads and do not know if there is an alternative. However, the site and app are outdated as hell, and miss some obvious features. However, if I understood the article correctly, these issues were there before Amazon, Amazon simply did not invest in the site enough to solve these issue.
The feature I liked most in goodreads, was that it would send you a monthly email with “new books by authors you’ve read”. It would send it at the start of the month, which was not actionable, but if you’d just wait a few months reading it, it was easy to see that LE Modesitt Jr finished another book in the series I enjoyed.
They stopped sending that, now it’s a “here are some books we want you to show some interest in”.
I got a bookwyrm account, and apart from not knowing all the books I’ve read, they also can’t tell me what books have come out recently, by authors I enjoyed in the past.
I’d think that would be a basic part of any book collection tool.
I’ve been using StoryGraph since it came around and really enjoy it. I’ve looked at BookWyrm, but I haven’t considered switching yet.
The article mentions the WaPo connection to Amazon and its board, as they should, but I’m surprised to see this particular topic there, too.
This particular paragraph is disingenuous in its characterization of what’s going on with Reddit, though:
There was also a concern that any major changes to the platform could scare people away. One former employee compared Goodreads to Reddit, an 18-year-old internet forum where users are revolting because of modifications to the site. “People feel like they can’t anger the community,” the former employee said.
Honest question: how does StoryGraph value your privacy? Being based in the US and being for free suggests that user data could be the real product. Otherwise it obviously looks really nice and I would love to use their stats.
Read the privacy statement but couldn’t figure out how to interpet it. I’m not worried about it that much but would like to avoid further feeding into big data. Not sure how, but the books I read could easily tell a lot about me.
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