[tomsem]

I have not spent any significant time in a physical bookstore or library in years. I don’t miss it, and don’t clearly remember why I liked to visit these so much in the past. I guess pre-internet it was the only way to do things, but now all my reading is digital, and so such visits are superfluous and inconvenient as well.

At the same time, I don’t spend significant time on Amazon (or wherever) browsing for books. I get most book ideas elsewhere and go there to read about the book and decide what to do (wish list, buy, ignore, check to see if I can borrow it, see what else the author has written, etc.). It is very efficient.

The analogy I would use about discovery is this: Google is a portal to the internet. But I have to have some idea of what I’m trying to find before it is of any use to me. Amazon is of no use to me unless I have some idea of what I want to buy.

I used to be too easily impressed by recommendation engines but now regard all of them (the ones I encounter anyway) as next to useless. Even for sites I use a lot, like Amazon and Goodreads. And lesser used sites have absolutely no clue what I like.