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But once there are 500 reviews on a product it basically gives you that confidence. This isn't a troll comment. Ben Thompson makes the argument that the reason
by krschultz 11y ago
But once there are 500 reviews on a product it basically gives you that confidence.
This isn't a troll comment. Ben Thompson makes the argument that the reason why EBay, AirBnB, and Uber work is because you basically are replacing the trust you had in a brand with the trust you have in community reviews. He calls it 'Aggregation Theory'. I find it rather compelling to explain why these types of marketplaces work.
- SandB0x 11y agoProblem is another supplier can claim to sell the same item and benefit from the positive reviews. I've seen a lot of this with unbranded items like USB chargers for cars.
- scott_karana 11y agoBingo. You always need to check the most recent reviews because of this: a solid history of 5000 5-star reviews is meaningless if the past 200 are 2-star reviews saying, "Not what I expected". And still, no guarantees.
- x0x0 11y agoExactly. And then you look up and you're 20+ minutes into skimming reviews in order to buy a $3 care remote battery or cable and wondering why the hell you didn't just drive to target / walk over the apple store because you'd be done with the errand by now.
- zyxley 11y agoI ran into exactly this earlier today. I needed to get a new Macbook charger and just buying one directly from the Apple store nearby was faster than (as I first attempted) trying to find one on Amazon without "this is actually a counterfeit imitation" warnings in the reviews. At this point I just flatly don't trust Amazon anymore for small electrical devices, because there's too much of a chance (even for things labeled with brand names) that it's actually a cheap knockoff that will short-circuit and set something on fire eventually.