Once upon a time it held a lot promise for book recommendations. You wouldn't simply look for books that had high star ratings, you'd be shown books that other people who had the same profile of likes/dislikes had enjoyed. They had all the data necessary to build an awesome recommendation engine.

discussion and recommendations.

but now it's mostly shit, like anything that is remotely social media. crazy power users and bad faith actors are all over the place.

I stopped using it a few years ago because people who harass me based on my reviews, esp if it was a critical review of a popular book.

I'm curious about this too. I thought that's what Goodreads was for, tracking your books.

I also use it for:

1. check ratings and reviews.
2. jump from a book to a series
3. check if/how book is translated to another language
4. rarely check book lists

And, TBH. I do not see benefits of making booksread federated. But, probably, I miss something important.