[sanderjd]

But if it will need a community to survive, then the selling point can't be "it won't go away after you use it for awhile". Or if it is, it needs some compelling narrative for why it will definitely attract a durable community.

FWIW: I think this product looks really great and already does a bunch of stuff I want, and looks waaaay better and runs waaaay faster than Goodreads, and those are all absolutely big selling points that I think could break through with the general book-loving community, and I think that's awesome! But I just don't think "it is decentralized" or "it will definitely not die" are clear selling points for it.

[bluefishinit]

If it needs a community to survive, you first need to bootstrap that community. People who care about federation and are willing try federated projects seem like a great community to help things get started. Especially because like I said earlier, this is in a vertical where value isn't locked into social silos. Reviews that these users make won't only be read by early users who they know, but will provide value to all future users.

It's normal and actually required to start with early adopters and innovators before reaching more mainstream audiences.

[sanderjd]

Sure, I definitely don't begrudge them their choices! It's their product, if they think this is a good way to bootstrap it, that's up to them.

But my feedback is that I think a better way to bootstrap would be to focus on figuring out what book enthusiasts dislike about the current products in this space and building that (for what it's worth, I think they're also doing a pretty good job of this!), and on figuring out a financial model to sustain the project for a long time.

But I can do it that way when I build a product like this, they certainly don't need to care a whit about my feedback.