Hold onto your book reviews, because X isn’t the only app┬аthat some users are ditching in the wake of the U.S. election.
Some readers say they’ve left Goodreads, a popular platform for tracking and reviewing books, in favour of The┬аStoryGraph, which bills itself as┬аan “Amazon-free alternative.”
The app, built and run by CEO Nadia Odunayo┬аand chief AI officer Rob Frelow,┬аsaw a┬аsurge of new subscribers the week after the election, up to nearly 25,000 in a single day by Nov. 12 тАФ which is 10 times more than usual. In a blog post, Odunayo said that by the end of the week, the app had┬аsurpassed three┬аmillion registered users and was a spot ahead of Goodreads┬аon the U.S. App Store chart for the top free iPhone┬аbook apps (though Goodreads has since surpassed it).
Odunayo┬аattributed The StoryGraph’s surge to several popular social media posts.
Some on BookTok┬а(the reading community on TikTok) called the switch a small┬аact of resistance, “to feel a little better about the mess we’re in.”
“Community and uplifting each other is going to be so vital, even more so, over these next few years, and this is something that so many of us in the BookTok community can do right now,”┬а said another┬аTikTok user in a video with nearly a million views.
CBC News has┬аreached out to Goodreads┬аand The StoryGraph for comment.┬а
How the U.S. election outcome ties in
Amazon purchased Goodreads in 2013. Jeff Bezos founded the retail giant in 1994 and was CEO until 2021. He remains the company’s largest individual shareholder.
Bezos also owns the Washington Post, and in the lead-up to the U.S. election, the billionaire defended the newspaper’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate as “right” and “principled.” He pushed back against any notion that he had ordered it up to protect his business interests.
That decision┬аto end the┬аdecades-long practice of endorsing presidential candidates┬аreportedly led to hundreds of thousands of people cancelling their subscriptions, and protests from journalists with a deep history with the newspaper.
The Post’s editorial staff had been prepared to endorse Democrat Kamala Harris, according to reporting done by the Post,┬аbefore publisher Will Lewis wrote instead that it would be better for readers to make up their own minds.
Less than two weeks before the U.S. election, the Washington Post’s owner Jeff Bezos said the paper would no longer endorse a presidential candidate, resulting in a loss of hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Andrew Chang breaks down Jeff Bezos’s argument for ending a long-standing tradition at the Post, and explains why fact-based publications give their opinion at all.
After Republican Donald Trump’s win, Bezos┬аcongratulated┬аhim “on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory” on X.┬а
The move away┬аfrom Goodreads┬аfor some is a smaller echo of what’s currently happening with Elon Musk’s X, whose main competitor Bluesky exploded in popularity┬аafter┬аthe election. Bluesky said in mid-November that its total users had┬аsurged to 15 million, up from roughly 13 million at the end of October.
The influx appears to be driven largely by former X users, upset by Musk’s campaigning for Trump and the president-elect’s naming of Musk┬аto co-head government efficiency.
‘Just because I’m Black’
As The StoryGraph CEO┬аOdunayo┬аpointed┬аout in her blog┬аpost, many people said online┬аthat they were leaving Goodreads for her platform because they wanted to support a business owned by a Black woman.
But she added that┬аshe was struggling with that reasoning.
“Of course I’m grateful for all and any support, and I love inspiring and rallying people, especially those who look like me, but I do struggle with the idea of people feeling like they have to use StoryGraph just because I’m Black,”┬аOdunayo┬аwrote.
“I decided to deal with it the way I did when we exploded a week after George Floyd’s murder [by police in 2020]┬аand there was an outpouring of support for Black creators: Don’t worry about why they came initially.”
Odunayo launched The StoryGraph┬аin 2019. Goodreads┬аwas founded in 2006 and has more than 150 million members.
As of Monday afternoon, The StoryGraph was┬аNo. 14┬аfor books┬аapps in Canada, and Goodreads┬аNo. 4, behind Audible, Kindle and Libby. In the U.S., Goodreads┬аwas No. 5, and The StoryGraph No. 12.
X, formerly known as Twitter, saw its largest user exodus since the Elon Musk takeover after Donald TrumpтАЩs election. The National asks two social media experts to break down whether X is becoming a platform for the hard right, and what happens when people only interact online with people they agree with.
