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Is Google unique in that, though? Amazon reviews are worthless now because companies pay customers to leave positive reviews or pay review farms to leave positi

Is Google unique in that, though? Amazon reviews are worthless now because companies pay customers to leave positive reviews or pay review farms to leave positive reviews. Even if someone reports them to Amazon, though, the companies just close their accounts and open new ones with different names and sell the same product. It's so trivial for them to pivot when they get caught that I'm not sure there is a solution to this problem.

winternett 5y ago
It's not really us who can resolve the issues... I just wrote my own "rant" on the matter and posted it here along with the start to fixing them: Yes, your frustration with the Internet and modern business is real https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30350322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30350322
adamc 5y ago
There is a perfectly good solution, and some people use it: don't buy from unknown vendors. If you buy a product from one of a few well-known companies in that space, they have a big investment in their brand, and are much less likely to engage in behaviors that might diminish the value of that brand. The price is that you pay more -- effectively, you are paying for that branding. I've had so many bad experiences on Amazon that I am increasingly doing just that. It doesn't apply to everything, but it is a useful strategy.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  So how does that apply to the conversation around Google, though? We can't only ingest information from a small group of sources. That's antithetical to the entire concept of the internet.
  - adamc 5y ago
    Isn't that effectively what limiting a google search to reddit does? Not that I'm convinced it will keep working, since reddit isn't really a vendor in the same sense, and doesn't have those incentives.
    - dkonofalski 5y ago
      Not really because the content is coming from a variety of users who are creating the content on the site. Reddit itself is not creating the content in the same way that sellers are trying to sell you their products and Google is trying to serve you their ads.
      - adamc 5y ago
        Yeah, I agree, but reddit also doesn't have the same skin in the game, hence the prior comment.

winternett 5y ago

It's not really us who can resolve the issues... I just wrote my own "rant" on the matter and posted it here along with the start to fixing them: Yes, your frustration with the Internet and modern business is real https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30350322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30350322

adamc 5y ago

There is a perfectly good solution, and some people use it: don't buy from unknown vendors. If you buy a product from one of a few well-known companies in that space, they have a big investment in their brand, and are much less likely to engage in behaviors that might diminish the value of that brand. The price is that you pay more -- effectively, you are paying for that branding. I've had so many bad experiences on Amazon that I am increasingly doing just that. It doesn't apply to everything, but it is a useful strategy.

dkonofalski 5y ago
So how does that apply to the conversation around Google, though? We can't only ingest information from a small group of sources. That's antithetical to the entire concept of the internet.
- adamc 5y ago
  Isn't that effectively what limiting a google search to reddit does? Not that I'm convinced it will keep working, since reddit isn't really a vendor in the same sense, and doesn't have those incentives.
  - dkonofalski 5y ago
    Not really because the content is coming from a variety of users who are creating the content on the site. Reddit itself is not creating the content in the same way that sellers are trying to sell you their products and Google is trying to serve you their ads.
    - adamc 5y ago
      Yeah, I agree, but reddit also doesn't have the same skin in the game, hence the prior comment.