301–310 of 499 posts
I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different. I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller. I documented everything incl…
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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…
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> because it came with a USB cable and a note saying to use only a 1A charger. I might not understand, but current-limited power supplies are a real thing. In America/UL speak its called LPS (limited power supply, the limit being current/amperage).
I’m not a hardware engineer, but my understanding is that a USB device isn’t supposed to draw that much current without performing either negotiation or sensing. Including a note that the user must use a 1A charger suggests that the device is violating the USB spec and will try to pull 1A no matter what. It then makes me worry about what other power safety systems are absent, since it’s a device with a lithium batter…
One really obvious point, did the instructions say it’s a) dangerous with a power supply that can’t provide 1A or b) not/less functional without the 1a supply? If they were not specific, I’m happy to easy your mind - it was the latter.
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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.
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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.
Luckily we have rotten tomatoes as a decent indicator of actual critic reviews. Until they start gaming the reviews to boost movies they (subsidiary of Comcast) want to promote.
I purchased the same webcam for my high school sophomore in September 2020, as school restarted (all online for him). The box contained a $20 "gift card" if I emailed proof of my 5-star review. It looks identical to the one I received (including the email address). Only the reward is different. I didn't try to write a review, I notified customer service in an attempt to report the seller. I documented everything incl…
Leave a 5-star review, get your $20. Resell the item on Amazon for $10 less than what the original seller was selling for. Earn $10 dollars profit. Repeat for other such products. Earn more profit. Make a blog about your antics; earn more profit, and help others profit the same way. Exploit the system until Amazon has to fix it. EDIT: I guess at no point is Amazon actually harmed by this scheme. However, the companie…
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While I think you mostly played this right I also greatly dislike people leaving totally binary reviews. 1 star because they had sleazy review tactics? This is part of the problem. We need unbiased reviews now more than ever. So many people aren't going to share your principles so trying for force the issue by giving a misleading rating is not a good approach. I think it would have been much better to just review it…
You're implying the review is about the product. If the review is about the company (e.g. a restaurant), then a 1-star review is warranted, if you feel that a company which games reviews is a 1-star company. I certainly do.
BTW, we're the ones who created these systems.
This way, potential customers of Amazon are decieived into believing many more people are having excellent purchasing experiences using Amazon than is really the case.
It's systemic. It's a deliberate false and misleading practise. I don't know what the law states or which ones might apply but on any ethical basis a pursued policy of deception like that to get sales is fraud. It's one of the many ugly things Amazon do with their resources rather than paying tax and acting decently. But they do use computers so nobody involved in public policy, law and enforcement can think about it at all.
"I just mug them at the bus stop. It's legal because it's with a computer."
Then of course we get the overreaction the other way from policy makers, that also gets captured by the big players like amazon, so it makes it even harder for smaller businesses, who pay workers and pay tax to compete.
Libertarains and socialists have a lot in common to explore.
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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.)
The point of a game isn't to win, its to have fun. A certain character may disrupt the mechanics of the game that are the most fun to a subgroup of players. To take it to an extreme, let's say a character is introduced to a fighting game and this character will win as soon as the "A" button is pressed. Now whatever fun people were doing to win in the game before is gone. In order to win, you just have to pick this su…