Authors hit by bad reviews on Goodreads before review copies are even circulated

> Long-time romance author Milly Johnson said: “I had a one-star rating for a book that hadn’t even been seen by my copy editor. When I raised it with Goodreads they wouldn’t interfere as they said the reviewer had a perfect right to predict if they’d enjoy it or not. I’m afraid at that point I washed my hands of them as a serious review site that should have some code of conduct. We all get bad reviews but at least we should expect any review to be fair."

Is Goodreads not a review site but just a soapbox for readers? What kind of serious review site would allow reviews where the reviewer simply speculates whether they would like something or not? Seems strange Goodreads would allow these kinds of reviews, it completely undermines any credibility their ratings might have.

Does anyone take Amazon review scores seriously?

For a long time, Amazon reviews could be somewhat useful if you ignored all the 5 and 1 star reviews and only looked at verified buyers.

But Amazon allows sellers to swap different products in under an existing listing so you don’t even know anymore if the review is for what you are buying. This allows sellers to cheat. It’s insanity.

It reminds me of the phone network. It’s so riddled with bad actors that entire generations now have been trained to never pick up the phone.

Why would a network operator allow caller ID to be so easily spoofed? For abusive callers to operate unrestricted? Even the audio quality of the calls seems to have gotten so bad in my parents rural backwater.

I don’t get it. Is engagement the only metric that matters?