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Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

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311–320 of 499 posts

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#311

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The 1 star review that loves the product but hated the way it was shipped. Someone needs to write a textbook on the pathology of those people.

The customer paid not only for the product but also for the service of having that product delivered to them. Asking them to restrict their review to only one aspect of what they paid for does not seem reasonable.

It's about giving proper weight to each aspect. Giving a 1 star review to an otherwise 4 star experience is dishonest if you only have some issue with the shipping (or marketing tactics), just as an example.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something about how the human brain works that makes us hate this. It happens in games a lot; the community will complain that a certain character is broken and that they hate playing against it... but won't actually go play the character themselves to exploit the brokenness for their own gain. Seems silly to me. (Buying reviews might actually be illegal though, so that's a strong argument to not do it.)

If you've never read it before, I highly recommend reading David Sirlin's Playing to Win. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw/ Specifically the chapter "Introducing... the Scrub" discusses exactly this sentiment. http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub > In Street Fighter, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations “cheap.” This “cheapness” is truly the mantra of the scrub. Performing a throw on some…

I'm afraid you've deeply misunderstood Playing to Win. This is quite common. Sirlin assumed a sort of community knowledge as to the context that people who came across the series later tend to lack.

Playing To Win is about people who refuse to learn the rules of a game. That's not what's happening here. What's happening here is that people who understand the rules very well are pointing out that they have holes in them.

Scrub statement: "throws are cheap". Informed statement: "the way SF2 tick throw setups work biases the gameplay too far in favor of the player with offensive agency." You'll note that the latter makes no mistake about the purpose of the rules and makes no judgments about players using the tools provided. Instead it focuses on system interactions and their net result. You'll note that almost every big fighting game in the 20 years since the end of the SF2 series has reduced the power of tick throws by means of frame data or broader system changes. Players generally decided that getting the first knockdown should not have that much influence over a match.

Scrub statement: "I hate people who get upset at review purchasing." Informed statement: "Review purchasing makes the buying process worse for everyone by creating incentives to deceive buyers, increasing costs for sellers that purchase reviews and reducing sales to sellers who do not. It shifts the Nash equilibrium towards paying more for lower-quality products." Again, the latter examines the system interactions and emergent behavior rather than making moral judgments about the participants.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each state's Attorney General's office usually has a department of consumer protection that will hear these complaints. I've reported Amazon to my AG more than once.

You can also report them to /dev/null, it will have the same effect.

> You can also report them to /dev/null, it will have the same effect.

Seems to be the same effect as reporting them to jeff@amazon.com, then.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each state's Attorney General's office usually has a department of consumer protection that will hear these complaints. I've reported Amazon to my AG more than once.

What sorts of outcomes have you seen from your reports?

I was contacted about one of my reports, and gave them more information about what happened. I haven't gotten a follow up to that call, but I didn't expect to.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#316

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My favorite is seeing 5 star reviews that are hijacking the top to complain. I've also seen 1 star reviews that are exalting reviews. But my all time ongoing pet peeve is how recommendation engines especially on video streaming and video game series use numbers and star systems that are not based on any other human's input. Not a critic, not a user score, just an algorithm's confidence score on similarities.

The 1 star review that loves the product but hated the way it was shipped. Someone needs to write a textbook on the pathology of those people.

I have seen a 1 star review of a glass container, which broke when the buyer dropped it. I mean, come on!

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#317
post #222

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The best place to find reviews it seems is through subscription paid independent reviewers. Consumer reports is one that comes to mind (they are also non-profit), as well as rtings. If you are looking for reviews for more niche products though, your pretty much on your own when it comes to finding out if its good or not.

"non-profit" just means there are no investors. It doesn't mean management isn't taking home money for running the operation.

It also means their finances are public so you can see exactly how much management is taking home.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#318
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The customer paid not only for the product but also for the service of having that product delivered to them. Asking them to restrict their review to only one aspect of what they paid for does not seem reasonable.

Depends. Oftentimes the shipping problem is the carrier's fault (e.g. UPS or FedEx) and not in control of the shipper at all. Other times they packaged it poorly and it predictably broke, leaked, or melted and it's entirely the carrier's fault. But I do see a plethora of comments that seem to be blaming things like shipping delays on the seller.

And in that case, the company's response is pretty important. There's a world of difference between (a) "it was fine on our end, take it up with the shipper", (b) "we are sorry this happened and are shipping a replacement", and (c) "thank you, and we are looking into other shipping options as a result of the frequent complaints". Some combination of (b) and (c) is acceptable. (a) is not acceptable.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#319

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'personal relationship with the brand' Personal relationships with a social construct indicate the need for proffesional help. Amd imaginary friends.

"Amd imaginary friends." Freudian slip? Need something to replace your intel laptop? :-P But yes, the whole point of brand marketing is to invoke a relationship in the mind of the [potential] buyer. And when you have people who devote their life to it there has to be someone out there who is good at it using whatever pysch tricks they can. So no wonder some people fall for it. It's almost inevitable.

"Personal relationship with the brand" may not have been the best wordsmithing, but I think the OP meant something along the lines of "your history with buying and using other products made by the same company." Presumably if they had the manufacturing and QA processes in place to sell you high-quality goods before, those same processes should help make sure that what you're buying from them now is also reasonably high-quality. It's not foolproof, and of course there are exceptions (especially if the company has changed ownership), but it's a decent signal.

Re: Amazon disallows pointing out paid reviews

#320
post #48

Now I remember ... The previous review practice that outraged me was when someone here at HN was producing very detailed analysis of LED bulbs (spectral analysis, etc.) and proving that lots of bulbs on Amazon had CRI and color temperature ratings that were way off . He then described how he posted that in some reviews and they were all taken down. Which is to say, crummy LED bulb on Amazon with an inflated CRI canno…

China Export [1] are the only two words anyone should ever need to know about Amazon when it comes to safety and quality. 1. https://support.ce-check.eu/hc/en-us/articles/360008642600-H...

It's an urban legend. The reality is more boring than what people believe - it's simply that the manufacturers who falsely declare CE compliance don't even bother to get the correct drawing of the CE symbol (which is the maximum possible level of non-compliance, not even the logo!). Yes, the logo is a forgery, and the nickname "China Export" is a humorous way to describe it, but it must be emphasized that there's no "China Export" symbol - it simply doesn't exist, not defined by any government agency or trade association in China.
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