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Excellent advice, but just one problem. For most sites, you had to have bought the product to submit a review, or to submit a credible review ("verified purchas

Excellent advice, but just one problem. For most sites, you had to have bought the product to submit a review, or to submit a credible review ("verified purchaser"). I personally stopped buying anything from HP years ago. So HN readers and techies in general are in the ironic position of having better judgment about the products but less able to influence the manufacturers. It's like hoping to see informed advice from doctors posting on a homeopathic website. The doctors are not buying homeopathic potions.

petra 10y ago
Even if it's not a verified-purchase , it's still counts in Amazon's count of percentage of 1 star reviews.
- rayiner 10y ago
  On principle I hate the idea of encouraging people to submit reviews for products that they haven't purchased. It's a crime worse than time-bombing generic printer cartridges and makes online reviews basically worthless. I don't give a shit about your moral stand against HP. Give me an honest review of a product you own or don't say anything.
  - tamana 10y ago
    You think sharing honest information to help people is worse than lying for profit?
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      Because the internet justice mob has never been mistaken? Because vigilantes never get a just a little carried away, and firebomb completely unrelated products with one star reviews?
    - rayiner 10y ago
      The one star rating is not an honest attempt to review the product--it's just pushing an agenda. For the vast majority of people the third-party cartridge issue is a footnote, not something meriting a one-star review.
      - EdHominem 10y ago
        It (the review) only concerns actual product features. No political slant, no revenge, etc. It's 100% a product review and nothing else. Imagine test-driving two cars. On the first, a wheel falls off as you round a corner. Obviously you aren't going to buy it, but then by your logic - not having bought it - you aren't allowed to comment on it. Also, do you really believe that someone is going to be okay with a product they buy refusing to function, just because it's a tech device? Replacing consumables, even if the consumable is high-tech, is something that even non-techies can understand. As proof, I couldn't fabricate my own tires but would be annoyed if my car wouldn't run with 3rd-party tires, despite not being a mechanic. It's rude and sociopathic, to assume others are too stupid to come to the same conclusions.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >For the vast majority of people the third-party cartridge issue is a footnote, not something meriting a one-star review. Then those people can always NOT write an one-star review. As for the others, there's nothing wrong with pushing an agenda, if you think it's an important fault of the product.
  - wfo 10y ago
    I absolutely agree. But nearly half of Amazon reviews these days are paid advertisements by the seller in my experience. And while I think you should never write a review for a product you've never used, if you've: 1. Supported or used one at work 2. Had to make purchasing decisions at work, done research, and chosen a competing product 3. Helped a friend or family member with one Then go right ahead.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      I would agree that there's absolutely a difference between a review for a product you've used or helped support and a review written because somebody on HN told you to write it.
    - themartorana 10y ago
      It really does feel like at least half. I went to buy an iPhone 7 case and they all had 50+ 4.5 star reviews... before the iPhone 7 had shipped. I filtered one case with 40+ reviews to "Verified Purchases" only, and only a single review was left. In some cases it feels like 90%.
  - quirkafleeg 10y ago
    > It's a crime worse than time-bombing generic printer cartridges Alerting people to a scam is worse than the scam itself? > makes online reviews basically worthless How is it worthless if it's stating important, relevant facts about a product? Basically you're saying unless you've personally lost out by scumbag practices, don't try and protect anyone else from falling victim.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - canttestthis 10y ago
    Disagree. You don't have to own a product to write an honest review of it. You don't need to have a Galaxy that caught fire to warn others of what's happening. I'm going to leave a 1-star review because my review is an accurate description of the product even though I haven't owned it. The real problem is people who review products on unrelated issues, like the political positions of the CEO.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      The end result of this isn't reviews that serve as helpful warnings to consumers, but rather reviews that nobody takes seriously at all because they aren't a reliable record of user experience. It's easy to quibble with this in cases like the Samsung batteries. But exploding batteries aren't the common case: much dumber things are.
      - canttestthis 10y ago
        My review _is_ a reliable record of user experience. If the reader buys the printer he is likely to face the same issue that I'm describing. To not warn them of the issue with the product seems way more unethical to me in my moral framework than the moral stance of keeping the reviews sacred. Heck, if I and others didn't do this and the printer was still at 4stars because the uninformed majority don't understand the technical aspect of this planned obsolescence, other uninformed readers may not feel the need to read the reviews at all (the average is 4! It probably has no issues! HP is a household name, I'll be using this for years!)
        tptacek 10y ago
        This mentality seems to me to have produced reviews --- on Yelp, on Grubhub, and christ have mercy on the Apple App Store --- that are basically worthless. You can painstakingly read all the reviews and try to glean useful tidbits, but you cannot look at the overall review scores and use them to make reliable decisions.
        10y ago
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazaroclapp 10y ago
    It is an honest review of the product, though. If you know for a fact that the particular model of printer is designed to take cartridges with forced expiration dates, then it is about a characteristic of the product which you consider bad enough to rate it 1 start. This is very different than, hypothetically, going over all HP products in Amazon and giving 1 star because, say, HP sued someone you don't think they should have, or filed taxes in a way you think is fraudulent or clubbed baby seals. It is also different from rating HP laptops badly because of this issue with their printer, for example. It is actually a review about a major flaw in the product that I would be purchasing, and thus relevant to me as a buyer regardless of moral stands of any kind.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      I'm curious to know if the scoring rubric that emits one star for printers with expensive ink was developed before this story, or invented as post hoc justification. An expensive but otherwise functional printer seems more like about three stars, no?

petra 10y ago

Even if it's not a verified-purchase , it's still counts in Amazon's count of percentage of 1 star reviews.

rayiner 10y ago
On principle I hate the idea of encouraging people to submit reviews for products that they haven't purchased. It's a crime worse than time-bombing generic printer cartridges and makes online reviews basically worthless. I don't give a shit about your moral stand against HP. Give me an honest review of a product you own or don't say anything.
- tamana 10y ago
  You think sharing honest information to help people is worse than lying for profit?
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    Because the internet justice mob has never been mistaken? Because vigilantes never get a just a little carried away, and firebomb completely unrelated products with one star reviews?
  - rayiner 10y ago
    The one star rating is not an honest attempt to review the product--it's just pushing an agenda. For the vast majority of people the third-party cartridge issue is a footnote, not something meriting a one-star review.
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      It (the review) only concerns actual product features. No political slant, no revenge, etc. It's 100% a product review and nothing else. Imagine test-driving two cars. On the first, a wheel falls off as you round a corner. Obviously you aren't going to buy it, but then by your logic - not having bought it - you aren't allowed to comment on it. Also, do you really believe that someone is going to be okay with a product they buy refusing to function, just because it's a tech device? Replacing consumables, even if the consumable is high-tech, is something that even non-techies can understand. As proof, I couldn't fabricate my own tires but would be annoyed if my car wouldn't run with 3rd-party tires, despite not being a mechanic. It's rude and sociopathic, to assume others are too stupid to come to the same conclusions.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >For the vast majority of people the third-party cartridge issue is a footnote, not something meriting a one-star review. Then those people can always NOT write an one-star review. As for the others, there's nothing wrong with pushing an agenda, if you think it's an important fault of the product.
- wfo 10y ago
  I absolutely agree. But nearly half of Amazon reviews these days are paid advertisements by the seller in my experience. And while I think you should never write a review for a product you've never used, if you've: 1. Supported or used one at work 2. Had to make purchasing decisions at work, done research, and chosen a competing product 3. Helped a friend or family member with one Then go right ahead.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    I would agree that there's absolutely a difference between a review for a product you've used or helped support and a review written because somebody on HN told you to write it.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    It really does feel like at least half. I went to buy an iPhone 7 case and they all had 50+ 4.5 star reviews... before the iPhone 7 had shipped. I filtered one case with 40+ reviews to "Verified Purchases" only, and only a single review was left. In some cases it feels like 90%.
- quirkafleeg 10y ago
  > It's a crime worse than time-bombing generic printer cartridges Alerting people to a scam is worse than the scam itself? > makes online reviews basically worthless How is it worthless if it's stating important, relevant facts about a product? Basically you're saying unless you've personally lost out by scumbag practices, don't try and protect anyone else from falling victim.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- canttestthis 10y ago
  Disagree. You don't have to own a product to write an honest review of it. You don't need to have a Galaxy that caught fire to warn others of what's happening. I'm going to leave a 1-star review because my review is an accurate description of the product even though I haven't owned it. The real problem is people who review products on unrelated issues, like the political positions of the CEO.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    The end result of this isn't reviews that serve as helpful warnings to consumers, but rather reviews that nobody takes seriously at all because they aren't a reliable record of user experience. It's easy to quibble with this in cases like the Samsung batteries. But exploding batteries aren't the common case: much dumber things are.
    - canttestthis 10y ago
      My review _is_ a reliable record of user experience. If the reader buys the printer he is likely to face the same issue that I'm describing. To not warn them of the issue with the product seems way more unethical to me in my moral framework than the moral stance of keeping the reviews sacred. Heck, if I and others didn't do this and the printer was still at 4stars because the uninformed majority don't understand the technical aspect of this planned obsolescence, other uninformed readers may not feel the need to read the reviews at all (the average is 4! It probably has no issues! HP is a household name, I'll be using this for years!)
      - tptacek 10y ago
        This mentality seems to me to have produced reviews --- on Yelp, on Grubhub, and christ have mercy on the Apple App Store --- that are basically worthless. You can painstakingly read all the reviews and try to glean useful tidbits, but you cannot look at the overall review scores and use them to make reliable decisions.
        10y ago
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lazaroclapp 10y ago
  It is an honest review of the product, though. If you know for a fact that the particular model of printer is designed to take cartridges with forced expiration dates, then it is about a characteristic of the product which you consider bad enough to rate it 1 start. This is very different than, hypothetically, going over all HP products in Amazon and giving 1 star because, say, HP sued someone you don't think they should have, or filed taxes in a way you think is fraudulent or clubbed baby seals. It is also different from rating HP laptops badly because of this issue with their printer, for example. It is actually a review about a major flaw in the product that I would be purchasing, and thus relevant to me as a buyer regardless of moral stands of any kind.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    I'm curious to know if the scoring rubric that emits one star for printers with expensive ink was developed before this story, or invented as post hoc justification. An expensive but otherwise functional printer seems more like about three stars, no?