> Is there a reason Amazon doesn't limit reviews to verified purchasers? When the Amazon review system was created back in the 1990s, there was no requirement

> Is there a reason Amazon doesn't limit reviews to verified purchasers? When the Amazon review system was created back in the 1990s, there was no requirement to purchase the item. That led to people often reviewing books they got from the library, or books that they already owned in their home library before Amazon existed. There were no scammers around to ruin things yet, and even if people weren’t buying every book from Amazon, they were still drawn to the site by these social features, the very vibrant "community" of book fans. Over the past few years, Amazon has already removed various community discussion forums. Apparently, now that the site has reached a dominant market position, it feels that social features are no longer necessary to attract or retain customers. As part of these changes, Amazon has also reduced the visibility of non-verified purchase reviews on many listings. Still, its efforts are gradual, maybe it feels that completely limiting the review system to verified purchases would be too drastic a step.