Charging the reviewed for the review makes it very hard to write a negative review, especially for subjective reviews like restaurants. This will happen withou

Charging the reviewed for the review makes it very hard to write a negative review, especially for subjective reviews like restaurants. This will happen without any conscious effort: 1. Restaurants will only pay for the review if they're fairly confident it'll be good. 2. When the reviewer comes, if the manager is able able to tell who it is, he'll make sure the reviewer gets perfect service. 3. Even if the reviewer's identity is secret, the restaurant will know that the review is happening this week, and can (temporarily) improve quality for that week only. The restaurant knows more or less when the review will be happening because they paid for it (earliest possible date) and they know when it'll be published (because they'll want to know before paying). 4. When the review company grows beyond a small local area, the company will have to hire more reviewers. Most likely reviewers will review establishments close to them, that is each reviewer will have a territory he/she covers. Some reviewers will be harsher than others, so restaurants in certain areas will be ranked higher than those in others. Areas will higher rankings will grow faster (because the folks paying like higher reviews). 5. If reviewers double as salesmen, the ones who review more harshly will make fewer sales, smaller commissions, and are thus less likely to stay with the company (either from quitting or from being fired). 6. When the company's clients (i.e., the restaurants) in city A notice they overall get lower marks than those in nearby city B, they'll complain and demand to be reviewed by the same person who reviewed city B. In short, the incentives for this company would be towards high reviews, not accurate reviews.