The fact that Letterboxd still bills itself as “GoodReads for movies” on their about page is hilarious to me, and not just because they’ve inexplicably styled “Goodreads” with a capital “R”. Letterboxd surpasses Goodreads in almost every way: user experience, functionality, aesthetics, not being owned by Amazon… and while Goodreads members outnumber Letterboxd users ten-to-one, surely the potential is there – how many people do you know who watched a movie in the last month? How many who read a book? And which do people talk about more? 

Goodreads has a stranglehold on the book-tracking market, despite not serving anyone particularly well – readers, authors, or publishers – and despite persistent bad press. Is it just network effects? First mover advantage? I spent a little time investigating why things have been allowed to get this bad, and then had some fun imagining what a “Letterboxd for books” would be like. 

Why is Goodreads the way that it is

There was nothing wrong with Goodreads when it launched in 2007. In a web 1.0, barely-social world (Facebook had just opened to the public) it was a boon to readers. The problem is that the site has barely changed since then. 

The founders, a couple who met at Stanford and later married, had tech and journalism backgrounds, but they strike me as readers first and developers second. They sold to Amazon after rapid growth in the early 2010s and have since stepped away from the site. According to this recent Washington Post article, Amazon never intended to do much with Goodreads, apart from mine its data. Insiders claim that Goodreads is built on such old code and infrastructure, it would cost too much to update – I work in “digital transformation” in the public sector, so I get it – but if Jeffrey Bezos can’t afford to update some old technology, who can? Amazon decided it wasn’t worth it, and by letting it limp along into 2023 with 125 million members, they’ve made sure no one else has a chance make something better.

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