I've had a few that I've been very fortunate with. Alas, I've had a few that I haven't clicked with at all. Nothing's worse than having someone read through your story, point out mistakes, suggest edits that are the complete opposite of the mood you are trying to create, and then highlight whole paragraphs with the note "You can cut this."
I swapped beta-reading duties with someone and it was so painful on both sides. To me, her writing was overly serious and a bit dull, but also lacking detail to the point that it was confusing. Meanwhile, she was always making notes about how I should cut dumb jokes because they were jarring and cut extra narrative that (I thought) helped give the characters depth, and cut explanations that she kept insisting were unnecesssary. It was so clear, we we were never going to be on the same page. It was constantly me going "This is confusing. I think it needs more narrative explaining the set-up" and her going "This is unnecessary. You're overexplaining and talking down to the reader. Cut this." (In those kinds of situations, you have to give up and only listen to what they say when they're pointing out typos.)
The problem is that even when you have a good beta, you can't often drag them into the next fandom with you (and most people are only willing to beta a fandom they know) and I've had bad luck with good betas getting sick or having babies and thus not having the time to beta again even when the story is one of their fandoms.
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I swapped beta-reading duties with someone and it was so painful on both sides. To me, her writing was overly serious and a bit dull, but also lacking detail to the point that it was confusing. Meanwhile, she was always making notes about how I should cut dumb jokes because they were jarring and cut extra narrative that (I thought) helped give the characters depth, and cut explanations that she kept insisting were unnecesssary. It was so clear, we we were never going to be on the same page. It was constantly me going "This is confusing. I think it needs more narrative explaining the set-up" and her going "This is unnecessary. You're overexplaining and talking down to the reader. Cut this." (In those kinds of situations, you have to give up and only listen to what they say when they're pointing out typos.)
The problem is that even when you have a good beta, you can't often drag them into the next fandom with you (and most people are only willing to beta a fandom they know) and I've had bad luck with good betas getting sick or having babies and thus not having the time to beta again even when the story is one of their fandoms.