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Why two star reviews instead of one for the cables that fail to meet the spec? Does Amazon / do people view 1-star reviews as bitter / exaggerated? Are they les

Why two star reviews instead of one for the cables that fail to meet the spec? Does Amazon / do people view 1-star reviews as bitter / exaggerated? Are they less visible?

Joeri 11y ago
They can still be used for data exchange, just not for charging.
- bosdev 11y ago
  They probably work for charging as well in most cases. The issue with most of them is they could allow too much current to flow, more than a micro-usb cable is rated for. Some consumers might appreciate this though, trading an miniscule fire hazard for their device charging faster.
  - mortehu 11y ago
    It's not about what the cable can handle. Some of these cables can be plugged into an old device on the end that delivers power, while the cable (which isn't just wires) advertises the power delivery capabilities of a newer device.
mikestew 11y ago
Personally, I filter out one and five star reviews. To me, five stars means when you use the product, Jesus appears before you. One star means I ordered a cable and received a dead crab instead (pretty sure there's an XKCD that covers the last one). But others don't agree with my rating system, so "ordered blue, but it was robin egg blue. Werst company evar!!!11" means one star. Five stars means "I work for the company that makes these, or I'm otherwise being paid to write this, or I simply didn't give a lot of thought to how rating systems work." In this case, the cable fulfills most of the requirements, misses a some of them, but might work for your use case, so two stars.
- larrybud 11y ago
  Really? If a product meets your needs, is a fair price, and seems to be working fine after 30 days, you would not give it 5 stars? It would need to perform miracles to get 5 stars?
  - kuschku 11y ago
    3 stars is "Okay, does its job". 4 stars is "Does its job better than expected" 5 stars is "contained a 100$ coupon for amazon" or something that really makes you love a product. The product quality of LEGO bricks – survives a century and so on – is worth 5 stars, as it’s far above expected quality for such things. For a USB cable it would need to be amazingly resistant to wear – survives being folded and survives a dog chewing on it and so on – and it would need to be perfectly manufactured to get 5 stars. In Hardware, usually very few high quality products – Miele washing machines, LEGO bricks, IBM ThinkPads, etc – reach something that could be called "5 stars".
  - mikestew 11y ago
    If a product meets your needs, is a fair price, and seems to be working fine after 30 days, you would not give it 5 stars? And then along comes the cable which, when I plug it in, causes a religious miracle to occur. How do I rate that one? Five stars is already taken. (Or maybe it should be two stars. I want to get my work done without being distracted by a prominent religious figure appearing next to my desk.) To put it another way, when I purchase something I expect that it will work fine after 30 days and that it meets my needs. That doesn't warrant five stars. That's three stars: does what I expected, doesn't suck but doesn't stand out from the rest all that much. If it were half the price of cables of equal quality, then I'd give it five stars. But IMO the product has to be outstanding in some way to warrant five stars, otherwise why have a rating system at all? OTOH, Amazon doesn't help with this. Click on "critical reviews" on Amazon, and three star reviews are listed. That's just broken. Three stars is middle of the road, not outstanding in anyway but not deficient, either. So, no, given your parameters, I would not rate the item five stars. I realize the rest of the world doesn't agree with me, and I'm loathe to participate in such a skewed system (everyone gets a trophy). My concession is I'll give four stars to something I'd normally give three stars, just so it doesn't show up in the "critical review" section, broken as that might be.

Why two star reviews instead of one for the cables that fail to meet the spec? Does Amazon / do people view 1-star reviews as bitter / exaggerated? Are they less visible?

Joeri 11y ago

They can still be used for data exchange, just not for charging.

bosdev 11y ago
They probably work for charging as well in most cases. The issue with most of them is they could allow too much current to flow, more than a micro-usb cable is rated for. Some consumers might appreciate this though, trading an miniscule fire hazard for their device charging faster.
- mortehu 11y ago
  It's not about what the cable can handle. Some of these cables can be plugged into an old device on the end that delivers power, while the cable (which isn't just wires) advertises the power delivery capabilities of a newer device.

mikestew 11y ago

Personally, I filter out one and five star reviews. To me, five stars means when you use the product, Jesus appears before you. One star means I ordered a cable and received a dead crab instead (pretty sure there's an XKCD that covers the last one). But others don't agree with my rating system, so "ordered blue, but it was robin egg blue. Werst company evar!!!11" means one star. Five stars means "I work for the company that makes these, or I'm otherwise being paid to write this, or I simply didn't give a lot of thought to how rating systems work." In this case, the cable fulfills most of the requirements, misses a some of them, but might work for your use case, so two stars.

larrybud 11y ago
Really? If a product meets your needs, is a fair price, and seems to be working fine after 30 days, you would not give it 5 stars? It would need to perform miracles to get 5 stars?
- kuschku 11y ago
  3 stars is "Okay, does its job". 4 stars is "Does its job better than expected" 5 stars is "contained a 100$ coupon for amazon" or something that really makes you love a product. The product quality of LEGO bricks – survives a century and so on – is worth 5 stars, as it’s far above expected quality for such things. For a USB cable it would need to be amazingly resistant to wear – survives being folded and survives a dog chewing on it and so on – and it would need to be perfectly manufactured to get 5 stars. In Hardware, usually very few high quality products – Miele washing machines, LEGO bricks, IBM ThinkPads, etc – reach something that could be called "5 stars".
- mikestew 11y ago
  If a product meets your needs, is a fair price, and seems to be working fine after 30 days, you would not give it 5 stars? And then along comes the cable which, when I plug it in, causes a religious miracle to occur. How do I rate that one? Five stars is already taken. (Or maybe it should be two stars. I want to get my work done without being distracted by a prominent religious figure appearing next to my desk.) To put it another way, when I purchase something I expect that it will work fine after 30 days and that it meets my needs. That doesn't warrant five stars. That's three stars: does what I expected, doesn't suck but doesn't stand out from the rest all that much. If it were half the price of cables of equal quality, then I'd give it five stars. But IMO the product has to be outstanding in some way to warrant five stars, otherwise why have a rating system at all? OTOH, Amazon doesn't help with this. Click on "critical reviews" on Amazon, and three star reviews are listed. That's just broken. Three stars is middle of the road, not outstanding in anyway but not deficient, either. So, no, given your parameters, I would not rate the item five stars. I realize the rest of the world doesn't agree with me, and I'm loathe to participate in such a skewed system (everyone gets a trophy). My concession is I'll give four stars to something I'd normally give three stars, just so it doesn't show up in the "critical review" section, broken as that might be.