Alfaniel Aldavan

“You won’t believe this. 99% of reviews on GoodBetterBestReads are written by less than one percent of the members.
Did you hear that? 99%! Let’s repeat it. 99%. Let’s repeat it. 99%.

Now, the thing is, we thought that by getting one percent to do all the writing, we could sell to the 100%.
We placed a lot of trust in the one percent. Can you see our dilemma?
A lot of people’s welfare depended on the one percent.

What would happen to our cocktails and our cars and our condos, if the one percent staged a strike?”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“. . . I can see how the issue of exercising corporate control over users content is truly enraging here, on a site significantly made by these contributors. It’s unavoidable that we come to this, in my opinion (corporations always do), and GR/Amazon has all keys to the kingdom, but I can see why it’s so disappointing and enraging.
Your content is theirs to do with as they please, their software works as they want, your choices are take it or leave it.

The Internet is no longer for sharing (nor for porn!), it’s for corporations to exercise their control over users.”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“At your next book club meeting, picture me sitting quietly in the corner, taking notes on your preferences. Imagine the next day you get an email from me trying to sell you a new grill — or a book — or accessories for your Glock. That's the Amazon/Goodreads deal. It's appalling. But everywhere in the press, you'll read about the genius of Amazon."
(Michael Herrmann and the booksellers of Gibson's)”
― G.R. Reader, Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

“The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society formed upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia