Amazon reviews are about as useful as Youtube comments. You can read them for entertainment but don't expect anything useful about the product, and don't base a purchase decision on them.
Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
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Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#12Perhaps I'm in the minority of frequent amazon users, but I don't buy anything from 3rd party sellers anymore. There is simply too much fraud. In practice, this means that I often need to skip past amazon entirely and go straight to the product manufacturer, sometimes paying more, just to be sure I'm not being screwed.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#13Note that I am not for Section 230's removal (mostly because it makes sense to me that platforms should be able to host negative content). However, if it were removed, would that mean bogus reviews become a liability for Amazon?
Now you know why Section 230 has to go. Comcast, TWC & so on is just a series of pipes, but Facebook & co has editorial control or at least should have.
Editorial control over every single post on the site? That's impossible.
Without 230, social media sites like Facebook would cease to exist.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#14Perhaps I'm in the minority of frequent amazon users, but I don't buy anything from 3rd party sellers anymore. There is simply too much fraud. In practice, this means that I often need to skip past amazon entirely and go straight to the product manufacturer, sometimes paying more, just to be sure I'm not being screwed.
This is probably the right way to do it since AFAICR Amazon also still commingles products sourced by themselves as well as sourced from FBA sellers.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#15I keep getting items I have not ordered, I presume sellers use fake accounts to be able to review their products. I reported that to Amazon but they only say "they are working on it" in a dismissive way. They even assumed I wanted to ask if I can keep the products and only seemed to take more seriously when I mentioned reporting it to the police. But nothing has changed.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#16Was running into this when I was looking for an apple watch band. When filtering by Avg Customer review, all the bands had thousands of fake reviews.
Had to go directly to Apple to buy one.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#17Perhaps I'm in the minority of frequent amazon users, but I don't buy anything from 3rd party sellers anymore. There is simply too much fraud. In practice, this means that I often need to skip past amazon entirely and go straight to the product manufacturer, sometimes paying more, just to be sure I'm not being screwed.
Even stuff sold directly by Amazon could be co-mingled with counterfeit inventory from 3rd party sellers.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#18There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself.
But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality.
There's still a lot to be said for established brands. Brands can afford widespread advertising because they have thriving businesses that generate lots of cash. Brands can get stocked in major retailers because you need decent products to make it through Walmart's buying process.
These are signals that are harder to fake, and they're kind of the best we've got right now.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#19Note that I am not for Section 230's removal (mostly because it makes sense to me that platforms should be able to host negative content). However, if it were removed, would that mean bogus reviews become a liability for Amazon?
Now you know why Section 230 has to go. Comcast, TWC & so on is just a series of pipes, but Facebook & co has editorial control or at least should have.
I guess HN will have to go as well, all the misleading articles and posts on here.
Re: Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
#20Amazon reviews are about as useful as Youtube comments. You can read them for entertainment but don't expect anything useful about the product, and don't base a purchase decision on them.
Youtube comments are actually decent now, with a very low bar for decent at least. Also depending on the type of video/target audience of course.
That google managed to improve them so much is likely their biggest achievement I can think of in many years.