Like the record and film distribution companies, they don't even bother to be competent

[cimorene]

It really seems incredibly bizarre that Google Books uses some algorithm to suggest other books to me.

When I simply want to read one of their ebooks I can't even open the reader directly, I have to look at their stupid storefront, which insists on showing only five books, the two last opened and three terrible suggestions from the store. The suggestions aren't even weighted to show the next book in a series - in fact their default book page often doesn't even have that information so you have to know the title of the next and then search their disaster store for it!

Even if I charitably assume they've never heard of series, that's no reason to suggest random authors I have no inclination to read instead of things that could arguably interest me, like other books by the authors I've just bought! Yet at the same time nothing stops them from suggesting books I've already bought or "Top Selling" books based on location detection and hence in a language I've never bought a book in.

ETA at 9 pm: Actually this did inspire me to look harder for sources of DRM-free epubs, and it's not quite as bad as I feared, although I'm far from confident that I can find the specific books I want to read that way.

Comments

[phosfate]

Amazon is now trying to sell me books that I already own. That I bought from Amazon.

[cimorene]

It seems like that would be an easy thing to include in a recommendation algorithm when it has to know what you bought in the first place to base the recommendations off of.

[phosfate]

And indeed was something they were perfectly capable of until a year or so ago.

[cimorene]

I suppose it's a case of noticing a missing stair and not noticing it particularly before.

[phosfate]

It was pretty immediate. Their 'suggestions' list also no longer accepts whether or not you own or hate a suggestion. Which is probably also something they've already sold you.