As I silent reader. I can say that if I don't have anything useful to say then I rather keep my mouth, but I try to say something useful. (:

Uhm for us writers I feel like it's bad. I mean, we spent hours or even days in my case to write out a long chapter and then no one gives their feedback. It .
It only takes a minute to leave a comment, while it takes us days to write that chapter. It's not fair for the writers ;a;

I agree with hopelesswriter and Gyutieful.
Authors on here *need* the feedback to improve. Takes two minutes out of their day to write a comment and they get karma as well. Is that such a bad thing?

can't be anything but bad. i can't give any hypocritical answer here.
i mean...i don't count those who read like 1-2 chapters n decide they don't like the story n stop reading as silent readers...or even readers. if you don't like it, i'm pretty sure the writers would rather you not 'torture' yourself to keep reading it.
but if you keep coming back, reading every single updates, not giving any feedback for all the efforts the writers took to update the lengthy chapters...that's just selfish. you want them to update n call it their responsibility yet you couldn't just spend a couple of minutes to do your part.
i can talk more about it but it won't change my answer, even a bit.

I'd say both, but they are more on the side of bad. I mean we've all been a silent reader, right? Also structural criticizm is actually good to help you improve writing, but bashing isn't:/

Honestly, why would they be good?

I think they're bad, since authors on here like feedback and readers' opinions. Also, it's bad to have too many silent reader, because they say "I'll only comment if the story is good enough" so I guess that says something about their opinions on your writing.

Even though they don't give you info to improve they provide the security of them actually interested in your writing. Different authors different opinions.