Well they are dumb enough to make statements like "what is the point of reading" so they clearly are no genius, and insecurity is a reasonable deduction. Degree is neither here nor there

Well somebody makes a post on it literally every day on this sub, so it is clearly still selling...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-15VC4Yxzys

It happens on Reddit too, in fact I would say here it is worse because the hivemind downvotes any dissenting opinion so it can't even be seen. At least on other places you have to actually type out a response.

Exactly what is the point of this post. "I was seeking validation on TikTok and didn't get it, so I came to Reddit for sympathy instead"

It sounds like you misunderstand how bookselling works.

Buying books from a different retailer isn't going to help. It is the publisher who contracts a printer. The publisher is what matters here, buying something off Waterstones rather than Amazon is not really relevant. Amazon will have more junk most likely but it isn't much of a guarantee either way.

Thanks. I looked under the About bit but couldn't see it!

How about a crowdsource list of best History books? Or a reading guide for different subject areas. They have things like this for r/comicbooks for example and it is really useful (and also somewhere helpful to direct people if mods want to remove low effort posts)

Very accurate. Also Prius was big more than a decade ago, now they are just one of many brands. So singling them out adds to the 2010 boomer feel to these insecure posts.