Amazon Dark Patterns • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#121

Post by iKevinShah » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 1:55 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #111

seren wrote: post #60

Prompted by this post, I wanted to check what happened to the 1-star review I have left 6 months ago. (Product worked for 3 days and then stopped, and after a replacement, the same thing happened). Sure enough, I have 0 comment in my profile, and I just checked, it has also disappeared from the product page. This is shady as hell, because I am 100% sure I wrote this review. I even wrote it twice, once on amazon.com a…

Consider the other side of this argument: should reviews be timeless? Many times a (good faith) vendor will make small, incremental changes to a product that addresses concerns that low-star reviewers point out. However, the product page remains the same - it does not distinguish between "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch A" and "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch C". It simply says "Seattle Coffee Beans". So if you leave a rev…

Sure they can, but what about some of the products on Amazon which are mostly immutable like for example: Books.

A bad book is a bad book. Batch B of the said book is mostly a new "product" listing on Amazon with its own set of reviews and ratings.

Also if Batch C is being sold or something similar (to batches), a better idea would be (IMO) to have the product owner comment on the review, saying we have fixed this in batch 2 or batch B or something

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#122

Post by Splines » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

SamuelAdams wrote: post #111

seren wrote: post #60

Prompted by this post, I wanted to check what happened to the 1-star review I have left 6 months ago. (Product worked for 3 days and then stopped, and after a replacement, the same thing happened). Sure enough, I have 0 comment in my profile, and I just checked, it has also disappeared from the product page. This is shady as hell, because I am 100% sure I wrote this review. I even wrote it twice, once on amazon.com a…

Consider the other side of this argument: should reviews be timeless? Many times a (good faith) vendor will make small, incremental changes to a product that addresses concerns that low-star reviewers point out. However, the product page remains the same - it does not distinguish between "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch A" and "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch C". It simply says "Seattle Coffee Beans". So if you leave a rev…

I don't know if Amazon has this feature, but I've seen sites that let the seller answer back to reviews - for cases where the seller has addressed a reviewer's feedback, they could reply and say that this has been fixed.

Or make a new listing, and in the description mention what has been fixed.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#123

Post by modzu » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #4

An alternative explanation for this is that Amazon is struggling with identifying fake reviews, which could explain both why there seem to be many fake reviews and why one would get blocked from writing reviews (basically falling victim to a false positive of their fake review detection). Obviously there is also some bad UX thrown in for good measure (being able to write a review without being able to send it), but w…

are you kidding me? the algorithm for "top" reviews is approximately synonymous with "hide negative reviews". a stretch to see how it benefits amazon? of course reviews influence purchasing, that's why they're there

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#124

Post by kthejoker2 » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

I see similar behavior on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, even Netflix - not necessarily review gaming, but just unfriendly user patterns and opaque algorithmic behavior.

To me the core issue is poor communication. They could easily explain all of the processes, ML models, logic, and human interactions that are in place for review posters and readers. Then it'd be trivial to compare that with (for example) OP's experience and identify possible improvements.

But the fact that they don't at all is very telling. Clearly not impeding growth or revenue.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#125

Post by arendtio » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

Maybe we should build an independent, decentralized review page, where you can trust (PGP style) your friends and family and they can do so too.

When suspicious reviews appear, everybody can track down the accounts which abuse our trust (and let the bots in). That way we could provide blacklists for accounts that are untrustworthy and everybody can decide who (or which blacklist) he wants to trust.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#126

Post by Splines » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

iKevinShah wrote: post #121

SamuelAdams wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the other side of this argument: should reviews be timeless? Many times a (good faith) vendor will make small, incremental changes to a product that addresses concerns that low-star reviewers point out. However, the product page remains the same - it does not distinguish between "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch A" and "Seattle Coffee Beans - Batch C". It simply says "Seattle Coffee Beans". So if you leave a rev…

Sure they can, but what about some of the products on Amazon which are mostly immutable like for example: Books. A bad book is a bad book. Batch B of the said book is mostly a new "product" listing on Amazon with its own set of reviews and ratings. Also if Batch C is being sold or something similar (to batches), a better idea would be (IMO) to have the product owner comment on the review, saying we have fixed this in…

This is OT but books can vary in quality too - specifically the paper used and the print quality. I was looking at "Physically Based Rendering" (http://a.co/bL8bjUw) after seeing the post here about rendering a scene from Moana and was disappointed to see comments about bad print quality. Hopefully this is fixed in a later print run.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#127

Post by ttoinou » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

arendtio wrote: post #125

Maybe we should build an independent, decentralized review page, where you can trust (PGP style) your friends and family and they can do so too. When suspicious reviews appear, everybody can track down the accounts which abuse our trust (and let the bots in). That way we could provide blacklists for accounts that are untrustworthy and everybody can decide who (or which blacklist) he wants to trust.

This. I always have thought of something like this. Only trust person your know IRL and friends of friends... That way we could compute a "trustworthy" coefficients.

Needs a good business model though

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#128

Post by leoalves » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

arrrg wrote: post #4

An alternative explanation for this is that Amazon is struggling with identifying fake reviews, which could explain both why there seem to be many fake reviews and why one would get blocked from writing reviews (basically falling victim to a false positive of their fake review detection). Obviously there is also some bad UX thrown in for good measure (being able to write a review without being able to send it), but w…

This episode of reply all show how hard it is to identify fake reviews and what seller are doing to fake it. Really interesting in my opinion. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/124#episode-player

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#129

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

I recently bought some new wireless headphones. After seeing a minimal amount of bad reviews, I bought them. When they arrived, I opened the package to find a note which said if I gave them a five star review, I could use this code for a 40% discount on any of their products.

Pissed, I wrote a one star review and how this was explicitly against Amazon's rules. It was up for a few weeks, then it just disappeared. I figured it would at least generate an apology via email, or something from Amazon about doing a better job of taking care of companies who do stuff like this. Never heard anything from either the company or Amazon.

I guess it was easier to just take down the bad reviews or keep a few negative reviews so it doesn't look completely nefarious. Seeing as how both companies and Amazon has a vested interest in keeping companies on board, I can only assume they're passively allowing this to happen.

Re: Amazon Dark Patterns

#130

Post by exgamedev » Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #2

I also had to implement this pattern for app reviews. Show a custom review dialog, if the user gives 4-5 stars send them to the app store for the real review, if not just say "thank you" and close the dialog. Repeat until one day they'll give you a good review.

I used to work for f2p game companies and they also used this as a standard trick. On top of suppressing negative reviews they would only ask you to rate the game immediately after something good happened in the game. You leveled up, or got a good prize, or whatever. They would craft these entire on-rails onboarding experiences where you seem to win a jackpot early on, then ask you for a review. They'd build out these flows and user test them and iterate until it psychologically produced the intended ratings