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A harassment campaign on Goodreads

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270 points ilamont | 1 comments | 06 Jan 20 20:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.243s | source
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jasonpbecker ◴[06 Jan 20 21:19 UTC] No.21973446[source]▶
Goodreads is desperately in need of a strong competitor.
replies(4): >>21973472 #>>21973686 #>>21974677 #>>21975169 #
bryanrasmussen ◴[06 Jan 20 21:21 UTC] No.21973472[source]▶
Aside from the spoofing issues what are the main drawbacks and benefits of GoodReads from your perspective - what's the worst of times, what's the best of times?
replies(6): >>21973507 #>>21973634 #>>21973710 #>>21973915 #>>21973926 #>>21974301 #
1. varenc ◴[06 Jan 20 22:41 UTC] No.21974301[source]▶
Their Facebook integration used to be downright deceitful. It was very easy to spam all of your friends that way. After they did that I changed my Goodreads account's name to "Chris 'Goodreads spammed all my friends'" and then I discovered that having an unusually long name breaks their design in multiple places. [1]

Besides the dark growth patterns, overall Goodreads feels like a clunky product suffering from feature bloat and poor usability. Unfortunately, because of the network effects and the Kindle integration, it's very hard for a competitor to get off the ground.

[1] screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xh4rr6mvey1lbfh/Screenshot%202020-... (it's been like this for at least a year)

(Facebook's API has been locked down in the meantime and Goodreads now only has access to your FB friends that also linked Goodreads...which they use to send a friend requests to each one)