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A harassment campaign on Goodreads

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270 points ilamont | 2 comments | 06 Jan 20 20:20 UTC | HN request time: 0.424s | source
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jasonpbecker ◴[06 Jan 20 21:19 UTC] No.21973446[source]▶
Goodreads is desperately in need of a strong competitor.
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prophesi ◴[06 Jan 20 21:42 UTC] No.21973686[source]▶
I recommend https://www.librarything.com/

Sadly, any Goodreads competitor will need to miraculously gain the network effect; everyone you know is on Goodreads, so it'll just be you and whoever you can convince to move to a new platform.

As for the downsides for Goodreads, this blatant lack of moderation is troublesome. I also dislike that Kindle / Amazon are the only visible links to purchase books by default. Amazon already dominates the ebook/audiobook market, so I also simply dislike Goodreads due to their acquisition by Amazon.

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caiocaiocaio ◴[06 Jan 20 22:06 UTC] No.21973967[source]▶
It's quite good, and I really like their automatically-generated recommendations BUT there is a small fee, and I have a knee-jerk reaction to anything on the internet that asks me for money.
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gravitas ◴[06 Jan 20 22:48 UTC] No.21974361[source]▶
You get up to 200 books at LibraryThing for free, then it's either a $10/yr or $25/once for life. If you're using the service to that degree (>200 books) then you know the value of the service and should be willing to pay a little in return. TANSTAAFL
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caiocaiocaio ◴[06 Jan 20 23:29 UTC] No.21974744[source]▶
I wouldn't think twice about buying something nice from a store for $25 dollars.

Once upon a time I bought something online for about $10 from what was a legitimate business with an address in San Francisco. About 14 months later they claimed I subscribed to some service and started making huge charges to my card ($150/week). Getting them to stop and getting my money back was an enormously stressful and difficult process.

That's why I have a knee-jerk reaction - not a cold, logical reaction - to online purchases from companies I haven't used before, and I'm not the only person like that.

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1. djrogers ◴[07 Jan 20 00:14 UTC] No.21975166[source]▶
> Getting them to stop and getting my money back was an enormously stressful and difficult process.

I've had incorrect subscription charges on one of my cards, and while it was minorly annoying (a search on the card website, fill out a form, repeat one more time the second month it happened) I can't imagine a scenario where it would be "enormously stressful and difficult".

Your card issuer is required to respond when you report fraudulent charges, and if they don't you need a new bank.

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2. thiagomgd ◴[07 Jan 20 01:09 UTC] No.21975648[source]▶
you're assuming that based on your case. Maybe on countries outside US it can be a pain to do that?