Agreed. I looked at the recommendations for a while but then stopped because they were terrible. Always the same books and never anything I actually wanted to read. They also often didn't seem to have anything to do with what I read besides a very very general genre correlation.

Same, horrible recommendations but I still use it religiously, especially to keep track of what I am reading. I keep forgetting the books I read so this makes it easier for me keep track.

If it’s an addiction to you and makes you to read as a job and not for your entertainment - you made a good call to stop using it. However there are people like me who are motivated to read by it:) Goodreads helped me to return to reading books. I just don’t set my goals too high.

OP, I think it might have been more helpful to frame your post less as "the problem with Goodreads is that it makes reading an achievement" and more as "tracking my reading turned it into a chore" (or however you want to qualify your experience).

Then people would be talking about their opinions on reading tracking, gamification, and motivation (which is what I think you were trying to discuss), instead of specifically why Goodreads is good or bad. Shame that's what people latched on to.

I get it. I’ll get overly focused on my numbers or that I’m not reading as much as other people (“This year I read 201 books!” Wut?) I do still use it for various reasons even though there are better sites out there. If you still want to track what you’ve read, maybe you could look into one of those.

P.S. GR just implemented their redesign and it’s kind of shit so rejoice that you are missing that.

That shows a lot of introspection and strength to figure out that something has become a negative part of your life and that you needed to remove the source of the negativity. It can happen with all different things, even things some of us wouldn't even consider being toxic in some way. Our brains are all different and knowing when yours was creating an addictive attachment to something that was negative for you is pretty darn smart. I didn't give up traditional social media until it almost killed me. It's not the same as alcohol or gambling, but addictive behaviors can make us unhappy or unhealthy and stopping them shouldn't get anyone downvotes. So boo to those people. Good for you for knowing where a limitation stands for you in this particular instance. Maybe someone else will realize the same thing is happening to them and sharing your experience will help.