r/betareaders don't have beta readers.

I've used r/BetaReaders for a bit, and I've only now noticed what's wrong with the vast majority of people who read your work.

They're not beta reading. They're giving writing critiques. They think they're editors.

They're not reading as readers. They're reading as writers. Even if they were to give writing critiques, that wouldn't make what they're doing 'not beta reading.' What makes most people's methods wrong is their focus on line-by-line criticism at the cost of getting into the flow of reading.

Every writer is a reader (you would hope), so there's really no excuse for this.

So many people get so wrapped up in providing constructive criticism line by line that they kill any chance of becoming immersed.

Even if a work is horrible, it doesn't make it impossible to at least get into the flow of the story and begin to follow it.

Yet the beta readers on r/BetaReaders will pause each time they see the opportunity to give constructive criticism and then start typing. Just by doing that, they have failed at beta reading. Can you imagine how it would affect the flow of the story if you got out a pencil and started writing on the page while reading a novel?

Constructive criticism is a favor to the author, but the way these writers create a snowball of disengagement with the work they're supposed to beta read does them more of a disservice than a favor. It exposes them to a specific type of critique that is only tangentially related to what they're asking for, which is a reader's impression, not a writer's critique.

The way I do it is the way I think everyone should: comment at the end of chapters or even after portions of the stories. Only when necessary, like when an entire chapter is weak and needs fixing, comment at the end of that chapter. If the pacing is bad, then after 2-3 chapters of bad pacing, give feedback on that. Then, of course, give feedback on the entire work at the end, once you've read it all.

That is a reader's feedback.