The vine program is a disaster for Amazon reviews credibility IMO. The reviewers are almost never invested in the product and most come down to "this product do

The vine program is a disaster for Amazon reviews credibility IMO. The reviewers are almost never invested in the product and most come down to "this product does the thing it says it will do!" and then goes on to some largely irrelevant surface details "looks great, fits just right in my purse" and perhaps compares it to items in a completely different class instead of its actual competition "these $90 headphones are much better than my iphone ones". Some do make a good effort and can be supplementarily useful but they just don't have the same concerns as people looking to shell out full price. I understand Amazon's (face value) motivation for it; decent products that are passed by because nobody reviewed it. But once you have one or two decent reviews all they do is add to the noise. Some sectors I've been looking at lately (eg USB chargers) are absolutely flooded with them to the point where it can be hard to find regular reviews. I used to use sorting by average customer review as a quick hack to see some of the best products in a sector, now it is often synonymous with "most spammed"; they are killing a key USP. It's all very well playing the "we are transparent and non-coercive" card but the reality is people are very unlikely to start rocking the boat when you are handing them free stuff, no matter Amazon's position. And call me sceptical but don't forget the role of the selection process. I'm sure it helps sales in the short term but long term it's a massive own goal. IMO they could salvage it by enforcing a 2 freebie reviews limit, or allowing users to filter them-- especially in the overall star rating.