You implictly assume that you'll receive a similar product to the one people reviewed or photographed. Without that assumption, a lot is lost. Under that assump

You implictly assume that you'll receive a similar product to the one people reviewed or photographed. Without that assumption, a lot is lost. Under that assumption, I agree. If you trust the seller, then you can probably also trust the reviews of the kind you mention (e.g. product photos). The problem occurs when you want to use the reviews to determine whether to trust the seller, not the product.