4 ms·

This also used to be my strategy, but now I am concerned that competing brands are sabotaging each other by just leaving poor 1-star reviews. I say this as I ha

This also used to be my strategy, but now I am concerned that competing brands are sabotaging each other by just leaving poor 1-star reviews. I say this as I have read some low reviews that just made no sense, or didn't reference aspects of the product that existed. I still trust 1-star reviews more than 5-star, but I don't take them as gospel. As you said, if there is a consistent message across all the negative reviews from a mix of reviewer types, then it strengthens the signal quality. Buying online sucks :(

exhilaration 6y ago
I find the 3-4 star reviews the most helpful. I feel like the positive fake reviews are all 5 stars (based on what the little notes I get in my Amazon packages, the vendors will only reward you for 5 star reviews) and I'm guessing the negative fake reviews are all 1 star. So that leaves those reviews in the middle as the only ones worth paying attention to.
ve55 6y ago
I came up with this as well. My strategy for products was often to read 1-star reviews, and there were often two cases: 1) The reviews are low-quality and not indicative of much, so there are few legitimate complaints, or 2) The reviews showcase a significant problem with the product alongside proof, and/or are often made by intelligent consumers After enough time doing this with success, I've started to see many more 1-star reviews on products that get highly upvoted until they're the 'top review(s)', which don't really contain anything useful at all. They try to appear like they are an instance of 2), but often offer little evidence or quality argumentation. I imagine it's easy to upvote 1/-star reviews on competitors' products to drive a lot of their traffic elsewhere instead. At this point I would love having a review system that is curated to only be from people I like/trust, but that is another whole story and ecosystem of course.

exhilaration 6y ago

I find the 3-4 star reviews the most helpful. I feel like the positive fake reviews are all 5 stars (based on what the little notes I get in my Amazon packages, the vendors will only reward you for 5 star reviews) and I'm guessing the negative fake reviews are all 1 star. So that leaves those reviews in the middle as the only ones worth paying attention to.

ve55 6y ago

I came up with this as well. My strategy for products was often to read 1-star reviews, and there were often two cases: 1) The reviews are low-quality and not indicative of much, so there are few legitimate complaints, or 2) The reviews showcase a significant problem with the product alongside proof, and/or are often made by intelligent consumers After enough time doing this with success, I've started to see many more 1-star reviews on products that get highly upvoted until they're the 'top review(s)', which don't really contain anything useful at all. They try to appear like they are an instance of 2), but often offer little evidence or quality argumentation. I imagine it's easy to upvote 1/-star reviews on competitors' products to drive a lot of their traffic elsewhere instead. At this point I would love having a review system that is curated to only be from people I like/trust, but that is another whole story and ecosystem of course.