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I regularly frequent fantastic small businesses there there are a handful of 1 star reviews from angry internet people. Pre-Covid, my favorite local banh mi pla
by rozap 2y ago
I regularly frequent fantastic small businesses there there are a handful of 1 star reviews from angry internet people. Pre-Covid, my favorite local banh mi place had a 1 star review that described the woman who ran the place as angry and hard to understand (because, I can only assume, her english was heavily accented). But in reality she was the nicest old lady and was so happy when I came back after a few months because our office moved. And I've been to 4.9 star places that could only generously be described as mid. Obviously this is all anecdotal, but it also seems to be a nearly universal experience among my peers. Rage baiting, Yelp's blatant extortion of establishments to get rid of bad reviews, and all the other little tricks described in the article are purely due to these awful companies optimizing their perverse KPIs, like a leech whose only KPI is quantity of blood sucked.
I was a true believer in a lot of this stuff 15 years ago, but from where I sit now I really agree with OP.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> a handful of 1 star reviews from angry internet people My favourite category of 1-star reviews are those left at obviously fine dining establishments praising the food and service but one starring due to price. (Same category: excellent food truck food, unbelievable value, one star because there wasn’t enough seating or the water came in a plastic cup.)
- stopping 2y agoThis is a particular banh mi place in South Bay isn't it? I've been there dozens of times and seen the reviews you're referring to. For similar reasons I completely ignore all review scores because gamification ruins all signal. Same with the chaff driven by SEO. Synthetic information is way easier to produce than organic information, which means it's always going to be a losing battle over the long term.
- rozap 2y agoNo this was a place in the international district of downtown Seattle. It's not there anymore unfortunately. But yea I'm right there with you. I ignore reviews now.
- whoknowsidont 2y ago>Yelp's blatant extortion of establishments to get rid of bad reviews Yelp has never done this. I have no idea how this myth has persisted this long.