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Comment by oxfordmale | Hacker News Reader

Book curation, or for that matter, any trustworthy product curation, is highly valuable. You used to be able to ask a bookshop keeper for recommendations based on your preferences and reading history. However, most independent bookshops have now disappeared from the UK. If you only read one genre, such as romantic novels, recommendation engines will easily find your next good read. If your reading habits are more eclectic, this provides a way to look at curated content from your favourite storefronts.

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> Book curation, or for that matter, any trustworthy product curation, is highly valuable

I can vouch for that. A small foreign-books bookshop in the city I live in has recently hired a new bookshop seller and, as such, the selection of books has slightly changed. For the better, from my pov, as I'm now in there every week or so and each time I get something I didn't know I had wanted (until seeing it in there, that is).

All this to say that the unknown unknowns are a real problem when it comes to purchasing books, and a curator who can solve that for the clients of a bookshop is a highly valuable asset.

"unknown unknowns"

This is an interesting point and a crux for many small businesses. I suppose curation is being monetized many ways, including subscription clothing boxes. In theory, I think this represents the problem that "influencers" should have fixed.

Unfortunately, most influencers get paid to endorse products and are nothing more than human ad bots. There was a sting in the UK where unwitting influencers agreed to promote a poisonous cyanide drink.

What ought to be rarely is.

Also, that is one horrific example lol.

"influencers" might have fixed it apart from the constant prodding from algorithms and other market forces that pushes them all to cater to the broadest possible market segment themselves. Can't emphasise enough how much youtube shoves in your face when one of your videos is doing worse than your average - when your low effort easy to digest drivel gets the biggest numbers, (more than the passion project you put your heart into) your spirit is crushed and you make more of it.

It's also very expensive, for an indie bookstore, to get book metadata legally since Baker and Taylor was acquired by Follett and to drive online traffic in a cost effectively.

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