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Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

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Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#51

Post by fearling »

everdrive wrote: post #7

As well they should. This is a game of cat and mouse. Consumers were ahead for a little while, but companies have really gotten a grasp on the internet, and they're winning the information war. It's no mistake that I've come to rely on brand name again. It's the best heuristic available to me. When all this first started (mid-2000s) I was actively avoiding basing ANY decision on brand name. For a brief window, I had…

> It's no mistake that I've come to rely on brand name again.

Big +1 here. Brand name is a core part of my decision making process at this point. Otherwise, I'm relying on word of mouth. Occasionally, I'll use some of the more "reliable" independent review services.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#52

Post by JohnTHaller »

Tons of Amazon vendors pay for reviews. Either a direct offer ahead of time (buy this product, give it a 5 star review, we pay you via PayPal), an offer in the box (give us a good review and we'll give you a free product!), or in response to a bad review (delete your review and we'll give you a refund). This is expected behavior now on Amazon. Amazon doesn't ever seem to penalize these vendors as they keep making Amazon money. They will, however, ban customers from leaving reviews once they have engaged in this. And prevent users from posting reviews mentioning things like receiving counterfeit products (had this happen to me).

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#53

Post by akramer »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #10

I invite people to checkout BestBuy's online shop. Just about every single item has a rating from 4.0 to 4.8 out of 5. I have yet to see a single listing under 4 stars. There are of course, unrated items, but can you honestly believe that virutally every product they carry is nearly perfect? Who actually writes a 5 star review for a no-name brand of tape and cable ties? When everything is perfect, nothing is, and I d…

I spend entirely too much money at Best Buy, and I’ve only written 5 star reviews for products I like. The bad products get immediately returned for a full refund - one of the advantages of buying from a big brick and mortar store. I never think about products I returned, I would prefer not to unless I’m given some incentive to write a bad review. Now, if I were stuck with the item, I’d probably trash it online in their review section.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#54

Post by monkeybutton »

yborg wrote: post #36
mumblemumble wrote: post #18

I also don't particularly trust professional reviews anymore. The affiliate link funding model has set up a glaring conflict of interest.

Consumer Reports. That's literally it.

Are they still influential? They're something I associate with my parent's generation and the era of print magazines.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#55

Post by breckenedge »

briga wrote: post #47

I've found that instead of looking for positive reviews I'll first search for negative reviews. Can't really trust the professional reviewers because they have an incentive to bend the truth. But you also can't really trust casual reviewers because it's so easy to game the system. Sometimes I'll look at places like Reddit for product reviews but you can't even really trust that anymore because more and more companies…

And you can’t really trust those either since companies will review competitor’s products negatively. These days I just ask coworkers and friends and family

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#56

Post by paxys »

whalesalad wrote: post #26

Would love to see a 'social score' come back a-la Klout, but not Klout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klout Instead of measuring how powerful or influential you are - it could instead be used to prove your honesty, trustworthiness, identity in some kind of anonymous way, etc...

Variants of this have existed forever. Here's what will happen – I spend years writing great reviews and building up a good score. People trust me, I become famous in the community. Brands start to vie for my attention. A shitty company comes along and offers me $1 million in exchange for a good review. What incentive do I have to turn it down?

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#58

Post by ghaff »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #46
undefined1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and Doordash. how is everything >4? are we really to believe that McDonalds has a rating of 4.6 out of 5? it makes the system completely useless.

> are we really to believe that McDonalds has a rating of 4.6 out of 5? Why shouldn’t it? You know what you are getting with McDonalds. For the price point they sell at, it is pretty good food. They are consistent. And they do a really good job with food safety, probably better than a lot of more highly rated restaurants (when was the last time you heard about an outbreak of a food borne illness at McDonalds)?

I very rarely eat at McDonalds because I don't like them for the most part. But, if I did, and I was promptly served what I ordered, why would I ding them because their burger isn't up to the standards of the (costlier) burger joint down the street or even Shake Shack.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#59

Post by gallamine »

A fun anecdote from my wife: 6 years ago she reviewed a nursing bra on Amazon. Gave it five stars. Fast forward to now and she when pulls up her review history that same review (with the exact text!) now appears on a consumer electronics device.

Re: Almost 40% of U.S. Consumers Trust Online Reviews Less Than They Did 5 Years Ago

#60

Post by umvi »

Blackthorn wrote: post #32

You can't even search for information about products anymore. All that shows up is affiliate spam pages that read like they were generated from a ML algorithm.

It's infuriating. I've noticed the auto-generated pages especially when searching using patterns of the form "X vs. Y". Half the links will just be auto-generated pages that show the specs side by side along with some ML-tinged paragraphs above to make it seem like the article was written by a human. (but after reading a few sentences it obviously wasn't)
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