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I hate Google with passion, for the things they do, but this is what they did for every brigade-rating that I can remember. And it makes sense. It's not anyone

by rplnt 6y ago

I hate Google with passion, for the things they do, but this is what they did for every brigade-rating that I can remember. And it makes sense. It's not anyone reviewing the app, it's people mass 1-starring the app because they decided to do so as a hive-mind. It's essentially fake reviews and I wouldn't be surprised if it's automated. Also, as far as I gather, people who wrote a human-like text review to go with their rating didn't get their review removed.

kristofferR 6y ago
If a stock trading app manipulates the market by preventing purchases, while allowing selling, of certain stocks that are popular with a democratized hedge fund community, they deserve all the 1 star reviews they get. It's not just an useless app now, it's an actively dangerous scam app.
- spiderfarmer 6y ago
  It already was a dangerous scam app. The data on trades went straight to front running traders, so they could feed their algorithms and profit off your plans.
  - UweSchmidt 6y ago
    Is that actually true? I thought "frontrunning" was one of the fundamental things that is forbidden by stock trading regulation. Does it not apply when done with those new-fangled computers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running
  - rplnt 6y ago
    I mean, that's what you get for not paying for a service. It's a trade-off people knowingly took.
- joking 6y ago
  the thing is that robin hood it's not a trading app, you don't buy a share on your name, those shares are pooled and bought and selled off the official market. If you want to invest, use a real broker, but then you will have to pay commissions. Also, have in mind that even if they say that they are commission free, you pay with higher spreads, so if the transaction price is 1, robinhood will sell it to you by 1.02 and bough by 0.98, getting a margin from you each time you make a transaction with them.
  - zmk_ 6y ago
    Commissions have the same impact, increasing your effective spread.
- KMag 6y ago
  > If a stock trading app manipulates the market by preventing purchases They're likely close to hitting their collateral limits with the clearing house[0]. During yesterday's 5-minute interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo, RH's CEO mentioned their collateral obligations (plus unnamed regulatory requirements) as the reason for preventing new positions in GME. Every trade creates a collateral obligation with the clearing house for 2 days, so if RH goes bankrupt while the trades are being settled, nobody loses. The amount of this collateral obligation is a function of the volatility of the stock. Lots of high-volatility trades in the middle of the 2-day settlement process eat up collateral very quickly. If RH runs out of collateral, none of their customers can trade until some of the pending trades finish clearing. The reason for still allowing people to close positions is presumably because people would scream bloody murder even harder if they were suddenly unable to exit these high-volatility positions. Collusion to manipulate markets, particularly in such an incredibly high-profile situation, seems unlikely. Whatever RH does, they know there will likely be investigations, so they're almost certainly on their best behavior right now. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951475
  - liaukovv 6y ago
    So they have a legitimate technical reason for why the app doesn't work. How does that excuse them? If cat picture app has issues with their image hosting partner it is not my problem, that's the entire point of going through a middle-man like stock brokerage
    - KMag 6y ago
      It's a problem, but the accusation of criminal market manipulation appears unwarranted.
      - liaukovv 6y ago
        I thought we are discussing app reviews.
        6y ago
twitch-chat 6y ago
Robinhood made a decision that cost its users from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps more. If there's ever been a more justified reason to give an app a 1-star rating, it's this. Google was out of line.
szszrk 6y ago
I can see all actual reviews of the app with 1 star rating explained in text missing today. Yesterday I could see plenty of them, today these are gone. They rate 1 star based on their actual experience. The service provided by app is not the same as it used to be, new rules were applied on-the-fly. We could speculate if Google should remove those ratings from people that never used the app...
mutatio 6y ago
Is it fake if the app seemingly became unfit for purpose if legitimate users were unable to buy GME? Robinhood changed the utility of the application, not the users.
- foolmeonce 6y ago
  Is a credit card still a credit card if they detect suspicious purchase patterns and suspend it? Is a rating system still a rating system if it detects cancel culture and ignores ratings? Is a broker still a broker if they follow SEC guidelines for limiting consumers who haven't filled out the experience questionnaire? How about if they are a discount broker and don't even have additional service for those who are qualified to trade options, etc? Really what we are seeing is more and more populist diatribe against the normal systems we have had for decades. Sure, some things will actually be improvable, but what is improvable and what is just the average expertise of a mob that responds with emotions being extremely low?
danielscrubs 6y ago
I’m not sure mass deletions are the most clever approach. Seems like a systematic failure that needs to be fixed because these things will keep happening. It’s a hard problem but Google doesn’t seem up to the task. Let’s say you had a short position and then the app decided that those stocks can’t be traded with anymore. What do you do? Even the smallest act of downvoting the company is taken away from you. I’m not disagreeing with Robinhoods position, but if I do I want to be able to make my voice heard with the tiniest fraction. Raises a question also, if an app is the biggest front facing area, should reviews only be about technical prowess or do we want that simply because we are developers and it makes our life easier? Maybe tags? Categories?
breakfastduck 6y ago
How are they fake reviews? The company has done something deeply unacceptable to its user base - why aren’t they entitled to update their reviews?
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  Maybe I'm underestimating both how active users are at reviewing apps and how many people use Robinhood, but I doubt there are over 100k people who updated their reviews because of yesterday. Personally I'd be shocked if the app had 100k reviews total last week. edit unless they offered basically real money to review the app, I haven't used it.
  - oneeyedpigeon 6y ago
    There were definitely at least 100,000 reviews submitted yesterday, based on my observation. However, there are huge numbers of people involved with this story - millions on the wsb subreddit alone. Bear in mind that most people don't submit reviews, but being angry at something is much more likely to cause someone to do so.
  - codetrotter 6y ago
    I don’t know how many users they have either, but re: whether it 100k reviews total last week. Normally I think you could expect only a few percent of your users to leave reviews. If you then piss off your whole user base collectively with actions that are unfair to them, then it is not a valid argument to say that because there are more reviews that the reviews cannot be real. I am not saying that all of these 100k reviews are real. But I am saying that how many or few reviews they had before does not count because until you do something really bad or something extremely good 90-99% of users are not going to leave a review.
oneeyedpigeon 6y ago
Is it possible to automate those reviews? As far as I can tell, you need the app installed to review. I'm guessing you can only review one. I'm guessing you'd need to use separate accounts, but that you could use one physical device (although Google could obviously limit reviews-per-device to a reasonable number). Can you affiliate more than one account with the same bank account?
kordlessagain 6y ago
The hive mind effect enabled by Internet technologies is a far reaching and deadly serious problem.
agilob 6y ago
Amazon does it with positive reviews. They add fake reviews for their products. As we know Google removes negative reviews, but do we know if Google manipulates reviews of other products (where Google makes money) like Netflix, Uber, Disney+? It doesn't matter whether it's negative or positive, we can't trust reviews anyway. They have incentives to make you download or buy apps.
- niklasrde 6y ago
  Does Google make much money from those? Do they have a policy like apple where they take a cut of the subscription fees?
  - agilob 6y ago
    >For apps and in-app products offered through Google Play, the service fee is equivalent to 30% of the price. You receive 70% of the payment. The remaining 30% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
drtillberg 6y ago
So when does censorship of or manipulating user ratings make an app store responsible to its users for failing to prevent harm to them (or wasted time) from bad apps, mismanaged services, scams and frauds? Ppl see the 4 stars, download the app, wire RH a part of their nest egg, RH predictably fails to honor commitments in ways explained by the deleted app reviews, and RH damages app users. At what point is Google responsible for that mess? Never?

by rplnt 6y ago

kristofferR 6y ago

If a stock trading app manipulates the market by preventing purchases, while allowing selling, of certain stocks that are popular with a democratized hedge fund community, they deserve all the 1 star reviews they get. It's not just an useless app now, it's an actively dangerous scam app.

spiderfarmer 6y ago
It already was a dangerous scam app. The data on trades went straight to front running traders, so they could feed their algorithms and profit off your plans.
- UweSchmidt 6y ago
  Is that actually true? I thought "frontrunning" was one of the fundamental things that is forbidden by stock trading regulation. Does it not apply when done with those new-fangled computers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running
- rplnt 6y ago
  I mean, that's what you get for not paying for a service. It's a trade-off people knowingly took.
joking 6y ago
the thing is that robin hood it's not a trading app, you don't buy a share on your name, those shares are pooled and bought and selled off the official market. If you want to invest, use a real broker, but then you will have to pay commissions. Also, have in mind that even if they say that they are commission free, you pay with higher spreads, so if the transaction price is 1, robinhood will sell it to you by 1.02 and bough by 0.98, getting a margin from you each time you make a transaction with them.
- zmk_ 6y ago
  Commissions have the same impact, increasing your effective spread.
KMag 6y ago
> If a stock trading app manipulates the market by preventing purchases They're likely close to hitting their collateral limits with the clearing house[0]. During yesterday's 5-minute interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo, RH's CEO mentioned their collateral obligations (plus unnamed regulatory requirements) as the reason for preventing new positions in GME. Every trade creates a collateral obligation with the clearing house for 2 days, so if RH goes bankrupt while the trades are being settled, nobody loses. The amount of this collateral obligation is a function of the volatility of the stock. Lots of high-volatility trades in the middle of the 2-day settlement process eat up collateral very quickly. If RH runs out of collateral, none of their customers can trade until some of the pending trades finish clearing. The reason for still allowing people to close positions is presumably because people would scream bloody murder even harder if they were suddenly unable to exit these high-volatility positions. Collusion to manipulate markets, particularly in such an incredibly high-profile situation, seems unlikely. Whatever RH does, they know there will likely be investigations, so they're almost certainly on their best behavior right now. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951475 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25951475
- liaukovv 6y ago
  So they have a legitimate technical reason for why the app doesn't work. How does that excuse them? If cat picture app has issues with their image hosting partner it is not my problem, that's the entire point of going through a middle-man like stock brokerage
  - KMag 6y ago
    It's a problem, but the accusation of criminal market manipulation appears unwarranted.
    - liaukovv 6y ago
      I thought we are discussing app reviews.
      - 6y ago

twitch-chat 6y ago

Robinhood made a decision that cost its users from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps more. If there's ever been a more justified reason to give an app a 1-star rating, it's this. Google was out of line.

szszrk 6y ago

I can see all actual reviews of the app with 1 star rating explained in text missing today. Yesterday I could see plenty of them, today these are gone. They rate 1 star based on their actual experience. The service provided by app is not the same as it used to be, new rules were applied on-the-fly. We could speculate if Google should remove those ratings from people that never used the app...

mutatio 6y ago

Is it fake if the app seemingly became unfit for purpose if legitimate users were unable to buy GME? Robinhood changed the utility of the application, not the users.

foolmeonce 6y ago
Is a credit card still a credit card if they detect suspicious purchase patterns and suspend it? Is a rating system still a rating system if it detects cancel culture and ignores ratings? Is a broker still a broker if they follow SEC guidelines for limiting consumers who haven't filled out the experience questionnaire? How about if they are a discount broker and don't even have additional service for those who are qualified to trade options, etc? Really what we are seeing is more and more populist diatribe against the normal systems we have had for decades. Sure, some things will actually be improvable, but what is improvable and what is just the average expertise of a mob that responds with emotions being extremely low?

danielscrubs 6y ago

I’m not sure mass deletions are the most clever approach. Seems like a systematic failure that needs to be fixed because these things will keep happening. It’s a hard problem but Google doesn’t seem up to the task. Let’s say you had a short position and then the app decided that those stocks can’t be traded with anymore. What do you do? Even the smallest act of downvoting the company is taken away from you. I’m not disagreeing with Robinhoods position, but if I do I want to be able to make my voice heard with the tiniest fraction. Raises a question also, if an app is the biggest front facing area, should reviews only be about technical prowess or do we want that simply because we are developers and it makes our life easier? Maybe tags? Categories?

breakfastduck 6y ago

How are they fake reviews? The company has done something deeply unacceptable to its user base - why aren’t they entitled to update their reviews?

boomboomsubban 6y ago
Maybe I'm underestimating both how active users are at reviewing apps and how many people use Robinhood, but I doubt there are over 100k people who updated their reviews because of yesterday. Personally I'd be shocked if the app had 100k reviews total last week. edit unless they offered basically real money to review the app, I haven't used it.
- oneeyedpigeon 6y ago
  There were definitely at least 100,000 reviews submitted yesterday, based on my observation. However, there are huge numbers of people involved with this story - millions on the wsb subreddit alone. Bear in mind that most people don't submit reviews, but being angry at something is much more likely to cause someone to do so.
- codetrotter 6y ago
  I don’t know how many users they have either, but re: whether it 100k reviews total last week. Normally I think you could expect only a few percent of your users to leave reviews. If you then piss off your whole user base collectively with actions that are unfair to them, then it is not a valid argument to say that because there are more reviews that the reviews cannot be real. I am not saying that all of these 100k reviews are real. But I am saying that how many or few reviews they had before does not count because until you do something really bad or something extremely good 90-99% of users are not going to leave a review.

oneeyedpigeon 6y ago

Is it possible to automate those reviews? As far as I can tell, you need the app installed to review. I'm guessing you can only review one. I'm guessing you'd need to use separate accounts, but that you could use one physical device (although Google could obviously limit reviews-per-device to a reasonable number). Can you affiliate more than one account with the same bank account?

kordlessagain 6y ago

The hive mind effect enabled by Internet technologies is a far reaching and deadly serious problem.

agilob 6y ago

Amazon does it with positive reviews. They add fake reviews for their products. As we know Google removes negative reviews, but do we know if Google manipulates reviews of other products (where Google makes money) like Netflix, Uber, Disney+? It doesn't matter whether it's negative or positive, we can't trust reviews anyway. They have incentives to make you download or buy apps.

niklasrde 6y ago
Does Google make much money from those? Do they have a policy like apple where they take a cut of the subscription fees?
- agilob 6y ago
  >For apps and in-app products offered through Google Play, the service fee is equivalent to 30% of the price. You receive 70% of the payment. The remaining 30% goes to the distribution partner and operating fees. https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

drtillberg 6y ago

So when does censorship of or manipulating user ratings make an app store responsible to its users for failing to prevent harm to them (or wasted time) from bad apps, mismanaged services, scams and frauds? Ppl see the 4 stars, download the app, wire RH a part of their nest egg, RH predictably fails to honor commitments in ways explained by the deleted app reviews, and RH damages app users. At what point is Google responsible for that mess? Never?