4 ms·

That may be true but when dealing with book discovery nothing beats going to an actual book store and browsing. Human curated isles and shelves, people to talk

That may be true but when dealing with book discovery nothing beats going to an actual book store and browsing. Human curated isles and shelves, people to talk to, an environment that fosters curiosity. That can't be replaced with clever algorithms designed to push whatever amazon want to push. I agree with you that buying on Amazon is easy and frictionless but convenience comes with at a cost and sometimes price is not money. If you already know the book you want, it is dead easy to buy on Amazon. But, it is also easy to buy elsewhere online. Amazon is a bully and its business practices harm authors and publishers. It also treats their workers poorly. Is this the company you want to fund?

techfoolery 6y ago
I don't want to be that guy and say to effect, "well, welcome to the real world". There are trade-offs involved for every side, good and bad. Your book discovery process may be optimal for you, but I couldn't be further away from that. I don't really care to know Bob or Sally's taste at the local bookstore, don't know them, have 0 trust in them. (There's probably exceptions, insignificant ones though, in big cities like Austin with really cool book stores & a niche collector-kinda collection, but that's a different market to me) Why would I care about human curated isles and shelves when I could go look up what Tyler Cowen's reading and recommending, or Marc Andreessen or Patrick Collison? Not to mention, Twitter's fantastic for this. There's very interesting people that post snippets as well of what they're reading, and build up a credibility that gives you insight into the book as well as knowing this person has a reading taste that aligns with your own. And then once I evaluate the options, I can easily go on Amazon and get whatever I want to read in a timely manner (Not to mention using Amazon's reviews as an additional filter, the 2/3 star reviews for more critical analysis)
- asdff 6y ago
  One benefit for me is that it's faster and easier to walk into my neighborhood bookstore and walk out with a good book that maybe I've already read a couple exerpts from right in the store (not some brief preview online), than doing my own legwork on book discovery and waiting for a shipment. I love my local bookstore, the people working there have great taste since they are literally professionals at this.
  - techfoolery 6y ago
    I see your point, but I'm more interested in folks who put theory into practice rather than folks who intimately know theory if that makes sense. I think those can be two completely different tastes.
davidwitt415 6y ago
Fully agree. The bookstore/library browsing experience is intimately tied to adjacency/serendipity. I love browsing up and down the stacks and looking for whatever catches my eye. Typical genre or sorting lists don't even come close to the richness and density of the stack experience.

techfoolery 6y ago

I don't want to be that guy and say to effect, "well, welcome to the real world". There are trade-offs involved for every side, good and bad. Your book discovery process may be optimal for you, but I couldn't be further away from that. I don't really care to know Bob or Sally's taste at the local bookstore, don't know them, have 0 trust in them. (There's probably exceptions, insignificant ones though, in big cities like Austin with really cool book stores & a niche collector-kinda collection, but that's a different market to me) Why would I care about human curated isles and shelves when I could go look up what Tyler Cowen's reading and recommending, or Marc Andreessen or Patrick Collison? Not to mention, Twitter's fantastic for this. There's very interesting people that post snippets as well of what they're reading, and build up a credibility that gives you insight into the book as well as knowing this person has a reading taste that aligns with your own. And then once I evaluate the options, I can easily go on Amazon and get whatever I want to read in a timely manner (Not to mention using Amazon's reviews as an additional filter, the 2/3 star reviews for more critical analysis)

asdff 6y ago
One benefit for me is that it's faster and easier to walk into my neighborhood bookstore and walk out with a good book that maybe I've already read a couple exerpts from right in the store (not some brief preview online), than doing my own legwork on book discovery and waiting for a shipment. I love my local bookstore, the people working there have great taste since they are literally professionals at this.
- techfoolery 6y ago
  I see your point, but I'm more interested in folks who put theory into practice rather than folks who intimately know theory if that makes sense. I think those can be two completely different tastes.

davidwitt415 6y ago

Fully agree. The bookstore/library browsing experience is intimately tied to adjacency/serendipity. I love browsing up and down the stacks and looking for whatever catches my eye. Typical genre or sorting lists don't even come close to the richness and density of the stack experience.