It's not working for me. I have two books of my own, and still, I never go there.
AFAIK Amazon acquisition didn't ruin Zappos. IMDb is more garbage than it was before, but I still use it. But Goodreads: nope, it was too close to what they already did on book selling, so they killed it. Slowly.
As someone who used Zappos a lot before Amazon acquisition, IMO the quality and selection decreased after Amazon takeover. Today, given the authentication issues across all Amazon services, I just don't go to Zappos anymore because I don't trust the products. Because Amazon. Additionally the UI is dated. Such a bummer.
never even considered being influenced by random people from the internet, unless this is someone I know.