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Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

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Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#141

Post by guappa »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #17
bentcorner wrote: post #11

> Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable business model for Fakespot despite its popularity I don't know if it's fair for me to armchair quarterback, but still - what was their business model when they decided to do the acquisition? From the outside looking in barely did anything whatsoever. I browse Amazon using Firefox extremely often and I don't recall seeing any helper UI pop up. Even so, what would have been their…

They could have slid in their referral link, which would probably make them decent money, but the "ick" factor is pretty high from consumers. I'm sure there will be a replacement though, and I'm sure they will go hard with referral links.

Just make it opt in

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#142

Post by benchly »

bentcorner wrote: post #11

> Mozilla couldn't find a sustainable business model for Fakespot despite its popularity I don't know if it's fair for me to armchair quarterback, but still - what was their business model when they decided to do the acquisition? From the outside looking in barely did anything whatsoever. I browse Amazon using Firefox extremely often and I don't recall seeing any helper UI pop up. Even so, what would have been their…

Rather that taking yet another opportunity to dump on Mozilla (it's easy, I know), I think a better question would be who is the alternative out there doing the work that Fakespot tried to do? Is this telling us that the task is too large for any current solutions to handle?

Just relying on consumer judgement has certainly proven to be inadequate in combating fake reviews, and without incentive, we're not going to get many legitimate reviews.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#143

Post by Piosky »

consp wrote: post #132
nothercastle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer eBay at least it’s cheaper and the sellers care about reputation

With ebay the delivery time for small items is measured in months or >= 200% of the product cost, and you either have to deal with gsp and the shit delivery they use or with DHL's insanely costly customs clearance. Probably only worth it if you live in the US.

[dead]

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#144

Post by Piosky »

mrweasel wrote: post #113
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

I kinda dropped using Amazon, both on principle, but also because they can't compete anymore. Amazon isn't exactly cheaper anymore, certainly not when you factor in shipping, their shipping times are awful, typically a week or more and you can't trust the reviews. They do have the larger selection of stuff, so if you can bundle a whole bunch of things it might still make sense. The problem is that you can't really fi…

>typically a week or more

I don't think there's a typical delivery speed at all as it depends massively on how close you live to one of their distribution centres. I can get most shit from Amazon next day where I live, some times same day if I pay extra (I don't) as I live only a few miles from one.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#145

Post by Piosky »

shawnz wrote: post #82
Mtinie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the rational option if someone is giving you something for less than it costs you and the moral implications of the action is minimal (at best).

Sure, but consider the costs of consuming your space with junk. Now you have less room for things you care about, there's a maintenance burden, and there's a mental burden as well

[dead]

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#146

Post by DragonStrength »

grogenaut wrote: post #98
colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

you're supposed to report this to amazon customer service not via a review. just send em a photo of the bribe and they'll verify it. yes it's not as satisfying but they can't validate your review unless you also posted a photo.

Well, last week Amazon customer support flow routed me to an LLM chat bot which hallucinated a 1-800 number to call which was most definitely not Amazon on the other end. That's the real usefulness of LLMs: blackhole any dissent now that your monopoly is fully operational.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#147

Post by varispeed »

dawnerd wrote: post #48
dankwizard wrote: post #46

It was falling behind. The dodgy stores were getting more creative and Fakespot needed to play catch up. You've got stores that would include a $5-$20 coupon/gift card in the item in exchange for a positive review. Sure, this didn't 1:1 translate but if a user did it would look like a legitimate review. You've got a plethora of LLMs out there just itching to GENERATE. Then an expensive option I was suprised happened…

Some company paid be 100 bucks to change my review to be positive so they sent the money via PayPal no problem then I changed the review to say they paid me to write a glowing review and of course Amazon ended up removing the review for being harmful to their customers

Some company said they know where I live and they will pay me a visit if I don't remove the bad review (product was dangerous). That was on Amazon.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#148

Post by dns_snek »

Scoundreller wrote: post #96
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

At least for what I buy from aliexpress, it hasn’t been infiltrated by fake reviews. Lots of incomprehensible or useless human ones though. (And bad machine translations by aliexpress…)

> At least for what I buy from aliexpress, it hasn’t been infiltrated by fake reviews.

Aliexpress just fake it themselves. Search for anything, sort by the number of orders, open the product page for the first result.

Next to the number of sales there's going to be a tooltip saying "Sales and ratings are calculated based on all identical products from the platform."

Under reviews there's going to be a message saying "The reviews displayed are from various sellers for similar product in AliExpress."

In other words, they might as well say that these numbers and reviews have absolutely no relation to the specific product you're thinking about buying, they're just there to increase your confidence.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#149

Post by amelius »

throaway920181 wrote: post #65
colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

Amazon is not the place I'd go to for electronics parts. Mouser and Digikey are my go-tos.

Lcsc is cheap and ok.

Re: Fakespot shuts down today after 9 years of detecting fake product reviews

#150

Post by varispeed »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #69
colonial wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is awful when it comes to striking down accusatory customer reviews. Last year I (like a fool) purchased some chunky thru-hole MOSFETs on Amazon. Lo and behold, despite the datasheets promising a few amps with 3.3V at the gate, I only got a few milliamps. Obviously counterfeit - but no matter how hard I tried or how much indirection I employed, Amazon always took down my review warning others of this verifiabl…

Amazon are becoming like AliExpress and Temu. They can always do it cheaper, but the quality is touch and go. Now with fake reviews it alot harder to tell what's good quality and what's not.

If something is not remotely up to standard, do a return. I know it's bad for the planet, but it is rather painful for them and probably only stick there is.
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