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It's not super difficult to only show reviews you are highly confident AREN'T completely fake. Instead they prioritize having as many reviews as possible - whe

It's not super difficult to only show reviews you are highly confident AREN'T completely fake. Instead they prioritize having as many reviews as possible - when possibly a majority of them are fake. And the cost is - the reviews are completely meaningless. All they care about is engagement - and if users have to dig through reviews manually trying to sort out signal from noise - that's engagement to them, not an awful product.

AlbertCory 3y ago
Amazon adds "verified purchaser" if the reviewer bought the book. Which means my glowing review (if I wrote one) of https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard-Greatest/dp/1591841526/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard-Greatest/dp... might look fake, since I borrowed it from the library.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Verified purchaser is not a good signal, and they know it. It's a way to force the fraudsters to buy from Amazon. Don't fix the problem - make more money from it. That's what companies do.
chongli 3y ago
Not all they care about is engagement. They also care about keeping costs down. If costs were no object they could simply hire well-paid, trustworthy, professional reviewers to review every product and listing. These high quality reviews could establish their site as the gold standard, strengthening the brand (think Apple levels of brand value) and drawing even more users. But all of this could be so expensive they’d actually lose money for doing it. So they don’t.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  Meet Kirkus Reviews. They will actually read it and write a (I guess) well-reasoned review of it. But you, the author, have to pay them. When I checked, it was $450. If you're an author, you also get a deluge of offers to write a review. I didn't follow up on any of these, but you'd assume that they couldn't get any repeat business if they panned your book.

AlbertCory 3y ago

Amazon adds "verified purchaser" if the reviewer bought the book. Which means my glowing review (if I wrote one) of https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard-Greatest/dp/1591841526/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Bill-Dave-Hewlett-Packard-Greatest/dp... might look fake, since I borrowed it from the library.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Verified purchaser is not a good signal, and they know it. It's a way to force the fraudsters to buy from Amazon. Don't fix the problem - make more money from it. That's what companies do.

chongli 3y ago

Not all they care about is engagement. They also care about keeping costs down. If costs were no object they could simply hire well-paid, trustworthy, professional reviewers to review every product and listing. These high quality reviews could establish their site as the gold standard, strengthening the brand (think Apple levels of brand value) and drawing even more users. But all of this could be so expensive they’d actually lose money for doing it. So they don’t.

AlbertCory 3y ago
Meet Kirkus Reviews. They will actually read it and write a (I guess) well-reasoned review of it. But you, the author, have to pay them. When I checked, it was $450. If you're an author, you also get a deluge of offers to write a review. I didn't follow up on any of these, but you'd assume that they couldn't get any repeat business if they panned your book.