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I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishab

by janpot 7y ago

I tend to ignore good reviews and rely on bad ones mostly to make my decisions. Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway, I tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied.

jfk13 7y ago
Yes, bad reviews are often more useful - particularly when they explain clearly enough what the reviewer found unsatisfactory, so that I can make my own judgement as to whether that issue is important to me.
pmoriarty 7y ago
The problem is that bad reviews can be just as fake as good ones, as they could be written by the product's competitors. Also, if a product is popular enough, odds are that even with a great product there'll be a small fraction of people who'll just happen to get a dud, while most of the rest will be satisfied. Because of this, I tend to read both good and bad reviews, and give more weight to the longer reviews that go in to great detail about the product and why they rated it the way they did, with comparisons to other products being especially helpful. Also helpful are reviews by professionals who really know the field thoroughly. Unfortunately, such reviews are rare. I also look at the ratio of good reviews to bad reviews, and look for products with many reviews, though on Amazon this strategy is not quite as effective these days as it once was. One of the big problems with Amazon's model is that it seems that most people buy the products shown on the first page or two of search results. Products on later pages might be just as good or even better, but they may never get bought or reviewed because they weren't on the first couple of pages.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  For me, it's the 4-star and 3-star reviews, and distribution of them compared to the rest (this can be gamed though). I see no reason that somebody would pay for 4 or 3 star reviews, and also competition would pay for 1 or 2 star ones instead. Primitive logic, but worked +-OK for me even on Amazon.
  - bgeeek 7y ago
    The chap on BBC radio yesterday said that he deliberately gave lower marks (4 star) than 5 because of exactly that - it looked too obvious. He also said that some of the products that he was paid to review he didn't even use (hemorrhoid cream being one item). I have also noticed the tit-for-tat reviews on Amazon between competitors. Its quite common on the cheaper products, in my experience. I've bought one or two awful things due to being caught by fake reviews, but I do tend to go back and leave a dreadful review.
- z3t4 7y ago
  This happened to me once, I added my product to a sales channel and a competitor instantly gave it a fake review and lowest possible rating. I guess that was enough to keep people away, as that was the only review for several years.
- salsadip 7y ago
  I used to do the same, and still sometimes do for bigger investments like good headphones. Other than that i only use Amazon for things im knowledgeable about. For other things where I'm not sure about quality etc and i would have to rely on reviews to make an informed decision i usually don't bother anymore and source it from local brick and mortar stores, either go in person or use their online store. Blows my mind how amazon is not paying more attention to this issue, i used to get almost everything on amazon - not so much anymore.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  It's become tedious fighting through the endless two word 5 star reviews, 1 star reviews because it was damaged in shipping and so on. Add that Amazon are determined to show thirty no-name brands of cheap (and nasty) copies of whatever item you searched for, sometimes making the actual market leader really difficult to find, and it becomes more trouble than it's worth. I don't have hours to micro-manage and investigate every £10 purchase for fake product, fake review or not the brand I really wanted. As a hugely keen early adopter of online shopping, these days I just go to the shops more and more often. It's just a shame there's so many fewer of them!
- cosarara 7y ago
  I love reading bad reviews on Steam, because they usually explain pretty well what the reviewer thinks is wrong with the game. I can then decide if that matters or not to me. They stopped adding new content to the game? Maybe not too bad. It has a buggy always-online DRM? Deal-braker. Etc.
aquadrop 7y ago
There are some useful good reviews. When author goes into details, comparisons with other stuff, some pros/cons, have photos etc. It's just too much work to do for the sake of fake review. Also if the author could be traced to such good reviews, their other reviews might be more trustworthy as well.
siner 7y ago
This. I tend to match the reported issues with a product across bad reviews to see if they are just glitches or something particular about it. When a product has way too many good reviews I usually try to see if similar products show the same reviews. It's outrageous how much copy paste is used.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
externalreality 7y ago
Let's face it, reviews are useless. Even when they come from professional product critics. Those critics can be compromised (bribed) by big business just the same. A good example of this were reviews for 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'; most reviews either against and in favor of that movie, by critic or causal viewer, were either fake or compromised.
- TorKlingberg 7y ago
  It's easy to declare that reviews are useless. So how do you choose products then?
  - bgeeek 7y ago
    I tend to read around a number of respected sources and magazines. It's a source of fun for friends and family, but I'm far too cynical with one review or source of reviews.
- c0vfefe 7y ago
  Reviews for a physical product that is described as fulfilling certain functions are much more objective & useful than media reviews.
carnagii 7y ago
> Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied ... tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied This is basic consumer behavior. Receiving a good experience (either service or product) is not notable because you paid for it and expect it, whereas a bad experience is offensive and makes you feel cheated so you retaliate by taking your time to leave a bad review. What this means at scale is that most positive reviews are fake except for the truly extraordinary products/services that are far above all their peers in terms of quality or novelty. In order to get decent reviews you have to be able to verify that the consumer actually paid for the product/experience and then you have to apply some sort of sampling methodology and statistical analysis to arrive at a meaningful relative score to other products/services in the same industry. No review site has any interest in doing this because they are just using reviews to generate free content for SEO, to put ads on, and to extort businesses into paying them to "manage" negative reviews in various ways.
V-2 7y ago
When I see a good review, I check other reviews of this person. If there are none or very few, it's a major red flag. If there are also positive, they're not necessarily fake, but maybe this person has very low expectations overall. I imagine someone like the Alec Baldwin character in an episode of "Friends". Of course relying on this isn't fool-proof, the reviewer could be mixing their genuine, "private" reviews with the ones they get paid for, but it's something.
pizza234 7y ago
> Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway A review can have a certain quality and/or amount of details, that makes it obvious that the reviewer actually owned and used the item. If I think it's worth sharing the quality (or lack of) of an item, I put effort into producing a review that it's clearly real. Reviewers also have a history. So I think it's not correct to state that the good reviews are always undistinguishable from the fake ones. Of course, with enough effort, a fake review can be made real.

by janpot 7y ago

jfk13 7y ago

Yes, bad reviews are often more useful - particularly when they explain clearly enough what the reviewer found unsatisfactory, so that I can make my own judgement as to whether that issue is important to me.

pmoriarty 7y ago

The problem is that bad reviews can be just as fake as good ones, as they could be written by the product's competitors. Also, if a product is popular enough, odds are that even with a great product there'll be a small fraction of people who'll just happen to get a dud, while most of the rest will be satisfied. Because of this, I tend to read both good and bad reviews, and give more weight to the longer reviews that go in to great detail about the product and why they rated it the way they did, with comparisons to other products being especially helpful. Also helpful are reviews by professionals who really know the field thoroughly. Unfortunately, such reviews are rare. I also look at the ratio of good reviews to bad reviews, and look for products with many reviews, though on Amazon this strategy is not quite as effective these days as it once was. One of the big problems with Amazon's model is that it seems that most people buy the products shown on the first page or two of search results. Products on later pages might be just as good or even better, but they may never get bought or reviewed because they weren't on the first couple of pages.

saiya-jin 7y ago
For me, it's the 4-star and 3-star reviews, and distribution of them compared to the rest (this can be gamed though). I see no reason that somebody would pay for 4 or 3 star reviews, and also competition would pay for 1 or 2 star ones instead. Primitive logic, but worked +-OK for me even on Amazon.
- bgeeek 7y ago
  The chap on BBC radio yesterday said that he deliberately gave lower marks (4 star) than 5 because of exactly that - it looked too obvious. He also said that some of the products that he was paid to review he didn't even use (hemorrhoid cream being one item). I have also noticed the tit-for-tat reviews on Amazon between competitors. Its quite common on the cheaper products, in my experience. I've bought one or two awful things due to being caught by fake reviews, but I do tend to go back and leave a dreadful review.
z3t4 7y ago
This happened to me once, I added my product to a sales channel and a competitor instantly gave it a fake review and lowest possible rating. I guess that was enough to keep people away, as that was the only review for several years.
salsadip 7y ago
I used to do the same, and still sometimes do for bigger investments like good headphones. Other than that i only use Amazon for things im knowledgeable about. For other things where I'm not sure about quality etc and i would have to rely on reviews to make an informed decision i usually don't bother anymore and source it from local brick and mortar stores, either go in person or use their online store. Blows my mind how amazon is not paying more attention to this issue, i used to get almost everything on amazon - not so much anymore.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's become tedious fighting through the endless two word 5 star reviews, 1 star reviews because it was damaged in shipping and so on. Add that Amazon are determined to show thirty no-name brands of cheap (and nasty) copies of whatever item you searched for, sometimes making the actual market leader really difficult to find, and it becomes more trouble than it's worth. I don't have hours to micro-manage and investigate every £10 purchase for fake product, fake review or not the brand I really wanted. As a hugely keen early adopter of online shopping, these days I just go to the shops more and more often. It's just a shame there's so many fewer of them!
cosarara 7y ago
I love reading bad reviews on Steam, because they usually explain pretty well what the reviewer thinks is wrong with the game. I can then decide if that matters or not to me. They stopped adding new content to the game? Maybe not too bad. It has a buggy always-online DRM? Deal-braker. Etc.

aquadrop 7y ago

There are some useful good reviews. When author goes into details, comparisons with other stuff, some pros/cons, have photos etc. It's just too much work to do for the sake of fake review. Also if the author could be traced to such good reviews, their other reviews might be more trustworthy as well.

siner 7y ago

This. I tend to match the reported issues with a product across bad reviews to see if they are just glitches or something particular about it. When a product has way too many good reviews I usually try to see if similar products show the same reviews. It's outrageous how much copy paste is used.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

externalreality 7y ago

Let's face it, reviews are useless. Even when they come from professional product critics. Those critics can be compromised (bribed) by big business just the same. A good example of this were reviews for 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi'; most reviews either against and in favor of that movie, by critic or causal viewer, were either fake or compromised.

TorKlingberg 7y ago
It's easy to declare that reviews are useless. So how do you choose products then?
- bgeeek 7y ago
  I tend to read around a number of respected sources and magazines. It's a source of fun for friends and family, but I'm far too cynical with one review or source of reviews.
c0vfefe 7y ago
Reviews for a physical product that is described as fulfilling certain functions are much more objective & useful than media reviews.

carnagii 7y ago

> Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied ... tend to rather just leave bad reviews when I'm not satisfied This is basic consumer behavior. Receiving a good experience (either service or product) is not notable because you paid for it and expect it, whereas a bad experience is offensive and makes you feel cheated so you retaliate by taking your time to leave a bad review. What this means at scale is that most positive reviews are fake except for the truly extraordinary products/services that are far above all their peers in terms of quality or novelty. In order to get decent reviews you have to be able to verify that the consumer actually paid for the product/experience and then you have to apply some sort of sampling methodology and statistical analysis to arrive at a meaningful relative score to other products/services in the same industry. No review site has any interest in doing this because they are just using reviews to generate free content for SEO, to put ads on, and to extort businesses into paying them to "manage" negative reviews in various ways.

V-2 7y ago

When I see a good review, I check other reviews of this person. If there are none or very few, it's a major red flag. If there are also positive, they're not necessarily fake, but maybe this person has very low expectations overall. I imagine someone like the Alec Baldwin character in an episode of "Friends". Of course relying on this isn't fool-proof, the reviewer could be mixing their genuine, "private" reviews with the ones they get paid for, but it's something.

pizza234 7y ago

> Will also never leave a good review when I'm satisfied, they are indistinguishable from fake ones anyway A review can have a certain quality and/or amount of details, that makes it obvious that the reviewer actually owned and used the item. If I think it's worth sharing the quality (or lack of) of an item, I put effort into producing a review that it's clearly real. Reviewers also have a history. So I think it's not correct to state that the good reviews are always undistinguishable from the fake ones. Of course, with enough effort, a fake review can be made real.