5 ms·

Can you foresee a scenario where a review site could legitimately exist without turning to synthetic reviews, dark UI patterns, or outright brand extortion?

by Mtinie 3y ago

alecthomas 3y ago
https://www.productreview.com.au/ https://www.productreview.com.au/ is the only site I've ever seen that does a good job at user reviews. Each review has to be accompanied by a verifiable receipt. Here's their operating model, which sounds like a mix of paid brand manager subscriptions and advertising: https://support.productreview.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/360001254676-Our-Operating-Model-at-ProductReview-com-au https://support.productreview.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/36000...
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  > verifiable receipt lol. the current amazon scam is to purchase the product (ship to a random address to defeat “common address” detection) then leave the fake review
  - alecthomas 3y ago
    Interesting but not relevant here - they require a photo of a physical receipt, and they're hand reviewed. Anything is scammable given enough effort though, no doubt.
    - jiveturkey 3y ago
      that’s exactly the amazon scam, executed with a verified receipt and “hand reviewed”. or did you mean, manually moderated? that’s no obstacle. for amazon the receipt is guaranteed authentic as the product will have been verifiably purchased on amazon. for a 3p site receipts can be trivially fabricated
- princevegeta89 3y ago
  Btw how do they detect fake receipts, if at all? I'm wondering as there are quite a handful of fake receipt generators on the internet
supertrope 3y ago
Yes. With a paid subscriber base and no advertising their interests would be aligned with the reader's. If you're not paying for the review they will ultimately build loyalty toward their funders.
princevegeta89 3y ago
Only if it was driven by a non-profit org I guess
- kfarr 3y ago
  Consumer Reports has entered the chat
  - local_crmdgeon 3y ago
    Consumer Reports has well known biases though, which colors their reviews. For example, they tend to rank American car companies unfairly low. Their vehicle issue score isn't weighted - trouble linking phone to infotainment is the same as engine exploding. Cars with more tech -> lower scores, even if they're mechanically flawless.
    - supertrope 3y ago
      Honda has moved down their rankings due to reliability problems with their infotainment systems. Lumping transmission failure at 50,000 miles with some audio system breaking is too coarse.
- Libcat99 3y ago
  Perhaps a site that included both reviews of companies and (paid) job postings from reviewed companies could survive. Of course misbehaving companies would probably stop spending there, but that might not be a bad thing.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    Wouldn't that set up a conflict of interest for the review site? I'd trust such a site even less than normal (and normal is pretty close to not at all).
    - Libcat99 3y ago
      Sure, in kind of the same way that steam has a conflict of interest with reviews for games. But I tend to trust steam reviews at least generally, in fact more than I do most reviews on products I am looking at. It is possible to exist in this space with a potential conflict, as long as you position yourself appropriately. If your interest is to serve "decent" companies by providing them with interested candidates, it can work. It'll work fine until the site decides chasing profit is more important than integrity of the system, so probably right around the time they're looking for more funding.
wintogreen74 3y ago
Not a review site, but networks of people I trust directly is about the only thing that works. As soon as this grows beyond the trust I have in the network, the proxy trust tapers off quickly. That's the problem with something like glassdoor.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  That’s why the most lucrative thing is to get people to ‘connect’ their networks digitally on social media and manipulate them. I hope we see a return to irl networks
wahnfrieden 3y ago
I’m designing a worker cooperative owned and self hosted distributed solution

Can you foresee a scenario where a review site could legitimately exist without turning to synthetic reviews, dark UI patterns, or outright brand extortion?

by Mtinie 3y ago

Can you foresee a scenario where a review site could legitimately exist without turning to synthetic reviews, dark UI patterns, or outright brand extortion?

alecthomas 3y ago

https://www.productreview.com.au/ https://www.productreview.com.au/ is the only site I've ever seen that does a good job at user reviews. Each review has to be accompanied by a verifiable receipt. Here's their operating model, which sounds like a mix of paid brand manager subscriptions and advertising: https://support.productreview.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/360001254676-Our-Operating-Model-at-ProductReview-com-au https://support.productreview.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/36000...

jiveturkey 3y ago
> verifiable receipt lol. the current amazon scam is to purchase the product (ship to a random address to defeat “common address” detection) then leave the fake review
- alecthomas 3y ago
  Interesting but not relevant here - they require a photo of a physical receipt, and they're hand reviewed. Anything is scammable given enough effort though, no doubt.
  - jiveturkey 3y ago
    that’s exactly the amazon scam, executed with a verified receipt and “hand reviewed”. or did you mean, manually moderated? that’s no obstacle. for amazon the receipt is guaranteed authentic as the product will have been verifiably purchased on amazon. for a 3p site receipts can be trivially fabricated
princevegeta89 3y ago
Btw how do they detect fake receipts, if at all? I'm wondering as there are quite a handful of fake receipt generators on the internet

supertrope 3y ago

Yes. With a paid subscriber base and no advertising their interests would be aligned with the reader's. If you're not paying for the review they will ultimately build loyalty toward their funders.

princevegeta89 3y ago

Only if it was driven by a non-profit org I guess

kfarr 3y ago
Consumer Reports has entered the chat
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Consumer Reports has well known biases though, which colors their reviews. For example, they tend to rank American car companies unfairly low. Their vehicle issue score isn't weighted - trouble linking phone to infotainment is the same as engine exploding. Cars with more tech -> lower scores, even if they're mechanically flawless.
  - supertrope 3y ago
    Honda has moved down their rankings due to reliability problems with their infotainment systems. Lumping transmission failure at 50,000 miles with some audio system breaking is too coarse.
Libcat99 3y ago
Perhaps a site that included both reviews of companies and (paid) job postings from reviewed companies could survive. Of course misbehaving companies would probably stop spending there, but that might not be a bad thing.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Wouldn't that set up a conflict of interest for the review site? I'd trust such a site even less than normal (and normal is pretty close to not at all).
  - Libcat99 3y ago
    Sure, in kind of the same way that steam has a conflict of interest with reviews for games. But I tend to trust steam reviews at least generally, in fact more than I do most reviews on products I am looking at. It is possible to exist in this space with a potential conflict, as long as you position yourself appropriately. If your interest is to serve "decent" companies by providing them with interested candidates, it can work. It'll work fine until the site decides chasing profit is more important than integrity of the system, so probably right around the time they're looking for more funding.

wintogreen74 3y ago

Not a review site, but networks of people I trust directly is about the only thing that works. As soon as this grows beyond the trust I have in the network, the proxy trust tapers off quickly. That's the problem with something like glassdoor.

lacrimacida 3y ago
That’s why the most lucrative thing is to get people to ‘connect’ their networks digitally on social media and manipulate them. I hope we see a return to irl networks

wahnfrieden 3y ago

I’m designing a worker cooperative owned and self hosted distributed solution