10 ms·

GPS routing is awful compared to a person who knows their way around a city. Uber drivers in hilly cities like San Francisco never, ever think to avoid climbin

by jes5199 12y ago

GPS routing is awful compared to a person who knows their way around a city. Uber drivers in hilly cities like San Francisco never, ever think to avoid climbing right up and down the steepest hills - the algorithms don't tell them not to, there's no traffic and it's not a low speed limit, it just sucks for other reasons. I had a driver last week who had never heard of Valencia St, and then misunderstood the GPS voice and accidently got on the freeway, getting us stuck in cross-bay traffic for 20 minutes just trying to get to the next exit. Of course I rated that ride 5 stars, because I'm not actually a psychopath ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-are-we-actually-rating-when-we-rate-other-people/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-ar... ) It's going to be a long, long time before we put anything approaching the depth of information that years of experience brings into our algorithmic routing systems. And startups are structurally disincentivized from trying to, anyway.

matthewmacleod 12y ago
That's really interesting. I wonder if there's scope and technology for a collaborative constraint-based solver that finds more effective routing for cities.
custardcream 12y ago
Well I drive around London a lot during the day time (inside CC zone) and Google Maps is pretty damn good on Android. I did a few years in taxis but owning a car that is CC exempt is cheaper including parking in NCP holes. Part of the reason its cheaper is after some experience driving around the city, you realise that at least half the taxi drivers are taking the piss. "the knowledge" is imminently replaceable by technology and is merely a party trick IMHO.
- jedc 12y ago
  It's not completely replaceable by technology. Once I had gotten a text from my wife as to where to meet her for dinner with friends. She didn't know the restaurant name, and had gotten the street name wrong. I just read the text to my London black cab driver, he asked me: "Did you mean XXX restaurant on [correct street name]?" (Note: there were multiple restaurants on the street). And sure enough, he was 100% correct. That's the day I learned to really respect drivers with The Knowledge.
  - custardcream 12y ago
    That's probably not "The Knowledge"; that's just some local experience and the fact that it's a high probability someone is going from that precise restaurant quite often. I myself have drunkenly hailed many a taxi outside dodgy restaurants in London. Unlicensed minicabs are pretty good at that too. Conversely, got a taxi from Angel to Leyton and the idiot went via Poplar and the A13 and the journey cost me £55 for a £30 journey.
    - jedc 12y ago
      Maybe I wasn't clear... I was in a couple miles away at home and told this driver the wrong street (and no restaurant name) and he got me where I needed to go. You might put it down to "local experience" but I think it's better attributed to the knowledge; there's no way a minicab driver would have been able to do the same. As you rightly point out, it doesn't mean that drivers won't still take the piss, but it definitely limits it. (Particularly when I compare it to virtually any other large city I've traveled to.)
    - kitd 12y ago
      Read the article. Updating the Knowledge is exactly what they do when businesses open and close.
    - rurounijones 12y ago
      The knowledge is not only the streets, they also have to memorise "points of interest" which includes things like pubs and restaurants.
      - custardcream 12y ago
        But that's illogical. If you know the bar and restaurant scene in London, it's very volatile. Restaurants and bars change names at an incredible rate. "The knowledge" will have expired by the time you've learned it.
        jedc 12y ago
- jeffwass 12y ago
  Wow, you're really calling a course of study that usually takes 3-4 years to complete a "party trick" because it's replaceable by technology? By that reasoning, isn't any job any of us have on this forum also replaceable by sufficient technology? Anyway, back on topic, "the knowledge" also covers alternative routes for road closures. I've usually been pretty impressed by black cabs. They know obscure little streets on the opposite side of town. Rarely have to give instructions. Compared to NYC where cabbies ask me how to get somewhere.
  - syllogism 12y ago
    > Wow, you're really calling a course of study that usually takes 3-4 years to complete a "party trick" because it's replaceable by technology? Yes of course!! Some other party tricks include reciting hours of lyric poetry from memory, adding large numbers in your head quickly, etc. You're talking like the world is fair or something. There's not necessarily an equivalence between effort expended and value created.
    - jeffwass 12y ago
      Are there any skills you have, degrees you've completed,or knowledge you possess that you wouldn't also consider a party trick?
      - syllogism 12y ago
        Sure. I write software that automates things, specifically natural language processing.
        jeffwass 12y ago
        So in other words - party tricks :-)
- Gustomaximus 12y ago
  > you realise that at least half the taxi drivers are taking the piss This is really not the case with my London cab experience. These guys are super professional. In many other cities I've found cabs taking the scenic route but never with black cabs. I feel your 'half' claim extremely inflated off probably what was very few bad experiences.
ntoshev 12y ago
It is a trivial problem. Track how anyone with a smartphone and your app on it moves around the city. Aggregate which paths they choose and which turn out to be faster / better. Then propose those paths to other users asking for routing instructions. I work on a software for routing deliveries (https://www.fleetnavi.com https://www.fleetnavi.com), and although we don't have this functionality built into the platform yet, it's the first thing to do when we get volume.
- slingerofwheat 12y ago
  Waze claims to do something like and it produces the most retardedly slow routes ever. I just hate it when someone uses Waze on my Lyft because I just know I'll take 10 minutes more. I don't think it's as trivial because there are lots of things to consider. Some drivers are just SLOW and it will have nothing to do with traffic. Maybe all slow/terrible drivers use your app so all the route speed information is completely based on specific patterns set by your app.
  - Avitas 12y ago
    That is odd in my experience. Perhaps it has to do with my locale. I am in a major metropolis and I drive throughout the city, suburbs and adjacent cities regularly. I know the area and I have been driving for decades. I have been using Waze for about a year now. The navigation routes it selects appear to be very good. They appear to be based on relevant factors too. I can only guess what variables they include in their calculation, such as weighted capacity, current traffic speed, etc. of the relevant route elements. My experience with Waze is the opposite of yours.
  - billforsternz 12y ago
    I'm amused that the phrase "uses Waze on my Lyft" is apparently self explanatory to this target audience. Clearly I am getting old and out of touch.
    - Danieru 12y ago
      It helps that the nouns are capitalized.
w1ntermute 12y ago
You're making the common mistake of disregarding disruptive innovation[0] at its early stages. Just because it starts out as only of low quality[1] doesn't mean that it will stay that way, or for long. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation 1: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Disruptivetechnology.gif http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Disruptiv...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jarek 12y ago
  You're making the common mistake of regarding high quality technology as inevitable. Just because it starts out as only of low quality[0] doesn't mean that it will improve, or fast. Google Maps directions is pretty disruptive tech, right? Add 10 years of experience, lots of roads, lots of time to gather data, real-time traffic info, and when I ask it for directions from my current location in inner London to a place in central London[1] it still gives driving directions first, even though I switch to transit, walking, or cycling everytime. But hey, innovation. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless 1: http://i.imgur.com/c7XAuUm.png http://i.imgur.com/c7XAuUm.png
  - w1ntermute 12y ago
    Setting aside your snide tone[0], the mode of transit shown by default in Google Maps has absolutely nothing to do with quality. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsehole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsehole
    - jarek 12y ago
      > the mode of transit shown by default in Google Maps has absolutely nothing to do with quality. Of course not. Technology will eat the world and improve on and replace humans in all complex cases. Like deciding what mode of transport to use in central London. Because disruption.
the_mitsuhiko 12y ago
> GPS routing is awful compared to a person who knows their way around a city. Strongly disagreed. GPS has traffic information, a human driver does not.
- guelo 12y ago
  A human that drives the same roads everyday most definitely does have traffic information.
  - the_mitsuhiko 12y ago
    I always use GPS even on the roads I use almost daily because the traffic information my GPS provides (Google Maps) works much better than me guessing what the traffic will be. Even if I know that traffic will be slow in the morning on certain roads, I cannot predict accidents and construction work.
  - baddox 12y ago
    I've been in San Francisco for 3 years, and I still check traffic information every weekend. Community events, which are fairly common, can make the difference between "traffic will be fine" and "don't dare leave your apartment." Perhaps less anecdotally, local traffic is a major staple of local news radio and TV, which probably means it's important even for locals.
  - Havoc 12y ago
    Not the kind that matter though: Is there an accident & associated traffic jam today on road X or not.
    - noselasd 12y ago
      A cab driver will get that information too.
      - Havoc 12y ago
        No he won't. This guy just spent 4 YEARS memorizing maps...his honour is not going to allow him to rock a GPS and any radio'd info isn't going to include the same second-by-second route computations that the GPS does.
dkopi 12y ago
San Francisco's hills are a very localized issue. Most cities are pretty flat. London included. Of course it's just a matter of time until GPS programs integrate topographical awareness, and give you the ability to avoid steep climbs. Its also just a matter of time until cars provide visual aids for navigation, and not just the voice on a GPS device.
- pimlottc 12y ago
  I think you're being a bit dismissive. Hills are just one example - every city has its local issues, be they hills, rivers, different laws, traffic patterns...
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Rivers are irrelevant to a GPS. Rivers only matter to a car to the extent that they determine the road layout, and GPSs know the road layout. They're also pretty good about laws, although there is still some trickiness about things like left-turn prohibitions that are only in effect at certain times. It's getting better all the time, though. Their traffic data is in my experience better than human estimation at this point, since they can route based on actual current conditions rather than extrapolations from past experience.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wyager 12y ago
>Of course I rated that ride 5 stars, because I'm not actually a psychopath You are doing everyone except the driver a disservice. By failing to give low ratings to bad drivers, you are precluding good drivers from entering the market (because the bad ones will never get phased out, and they will saturate the market). You are also preventing consumers from making a well-informed decision, which limits the effectiveness of market mechanisms.
jdmichal 12y ago
In relation to your comment about the review: If anything less than 5 stars is unsatisfactory in Uber's eyes, why do they even have stars? If the rating is boolean anyway (5-stars or not-5-stars), then just put a single choice: Was this ride satisfactory? It shouldn't be my responsibility to know that rating a driver who was slightly late or slightly lost 4 stars is a Bad Thing. However, if you ask me whether that same ride was satisfactory or not, I'd probably say that it was. I don't necessarily want to punish people for one mistake, but I shouldn't need to rate them perfectly either.
- ghaff 12y ago
  I don't disagree but it seems to be the norm with P2P rating systems on the Internet. I haven't used eBay for ages--at least in its original flea market sense--either buying or selling. But there was definitely a sense back then that even giving a neutral (e.g. problem with shipping but seller resolved or something else along the lines of not ideal, but generally worked out) was giving a major black star. And people zealously guarded their perfect positive ratings--because it did make a difference. B2C seems a bit different though you still see more 5s than deserved. Personally, I have no problem giving 4s for good to very good, but not truly outstanding.
- choult 12y ago
  One argument for the resolution is a perception as to whether the ride is improving or not - a binary indication of this will only tell you that you've gotten to the best ride, whereas a scale will, over the course of time, show improvement or detriment (subject to the different standards of the rider). Also, one person's "satisfactory" might not be another's, so having a range to select from will provide a much richer piece of feedback capable of being weighted than a simple yes/no.
  - jdmichal 12y ago
    A worthy argument, but one that falls a bit flat when the acceptable range of "passing" scores is .3 (4.7+) out of 5.
- chrisseaton 12y ago
jeffwass 12y ago
Mapkin is doing this actually. They let users crowd-source their own directions, along with much better turn-by-turn descriptions too. Eg, "turn sharp right just after the firehouse, go past the field and make a left just before the baseball field". Instead of "turn right, keep left and turn left". https://mapkin.co https://mapkin.co
disordinary 12y ago
This is one of those weird cultural things that us non North Americans cannot understand, like automatically tipping. Here we don't tip unless someone is absolutely exceptional (and tips get shared amongst staff in restaurants anyway), and we don't give five stars unless you really deserve it.
notduncansmith 12y ago
How'd you get an Uber driver that's never heard of Valencia St?
- objclxt 12y ago
  Happens all the time, especially when there are big events on. I had a driver a few weeks ago who had come down from Sacramento to work the weekend in SF for such an event (Dreamforce, I think) and was relying solely on GPS.
jostmey 12y ago
I always enter in my final destination when requesting a pickup. Avoids any confusion. Seriously?!
schrodinger 12y ago
Side note: it drives me nuts that that article mixes up "insures" and "ensures." Shouldn't an editor at someplace like Forbes catch that?
igonvalue 12y ago
That's a very insightful article you linked. I had always wondered why Airbnb reviews were so uniformly high, even when not merited. I'd found some explanations involving Airbnb hiding negative reviews, but never quite connected the fact that I personally felt uncomfortable leaving negative reviews with the fact that other people generally didn't.

by jes5199 12y ago

matthewmacleod 12y ago

That's really interesting. I wonder if there's scope and technology for a collaborative constraint-based solver that finds more effective routing for cities.

custardcream 12y ago

Well I drive around London a lot during the day time (inside CC zone) and Google Maps is pretty damn good on Android. I did a few years in taxis but owning a car that is CC exempt is cheaper including parking in NCP holes. Part of the reason its cheaper is after some experience driving around the city, you realise that at least half the taxi drivers are taking the piss. "the knowledge" is imminently replaceable by technology and is merely a party trick IMHO.

jedc 12y ago
It's not completely replaceable by technology. Once I had gotten a text from my wife as to where to meet her for dinner with friends. She didn't know the restaurant name, and had gotten the street name wrong. I just read the text to my London black cab driver, he asked me: "Did you mean XXX restaurant on [correct street name]?" (Note: there were multiple restaurants on the street). And sure enough, he was 100% correct. That's the day I learned to really respect drivers with The Knowledge.
- custardcream 12y ago
  That's probably not "The Knowledge"; that's just some local experience and the fact that it's a high probability someone is going from that precise restaurant quite often. I myself have drunkenly hailed many a taxi outside dodgy restaurants in London. Unlicensed minicabs are pretty good at that too. Conversely, got a taxi from Angel to Leyton and the idiot went via Poplar and the A13 and the journey cost me £55 for a £30 journey.
  - jedc 12y ago
    Maybe I wasn't clear... I was in a couple miles away at home and told this driver the wrong street (and no restaurant name) and he got me where I needed to go. You might put it down to "local experience" but I think it's better attributed to the knowledge; there's no way a minicab driver would have been able to do the same. As you rightly point out, it doesn't mean that drivers won't still take the piss, but it definitely limits it. (Particularly when I compare it to virtually any other large city I've traveled to.)
  - kitd 12y ago
    Read the article. Updating the Knowledge is exactly what they do when businesses open and close.
  - rurounijones 12y ago
    The knowledge is not only the streets, they also have to memorise "points of interest" which includes things like pubs and restaurants.
    - custardcream 12y ago
      But that's illogical. If you know the bar and restaurant scene in London, it's very volatile. Restaurants and bars change names at an incredible rate. "The knowledge" will have expired by the time you've learned it.
      - jedc 12y ago
jeffwass 12y ago
Wow, you're really calling a course of study that usually takes 3-4 years to complete a "party trick" because it's replaceable by technology? By that reasoning, isn't any job any of us have on this forum also replaceable by sufficient technology? Anyway, back on topic, "the knowledge" also covers alternative routes for road closures. I've usually been pretty impressed by black cabs. They know obscure little streets on the opposite side of town. Rarely have to give instructions. Compared to NYC where cabbies ask me how to get somewhere.
- syllogism 12y ago
  > Wow, you're really calling a course of study that usually takes 3-4 years to complete a "party trick" because it's replaceable by technology? Yes of course!! Some other party tricks include reciting hours of lyric poetry from memory, adding large numbers in your head quickly, etc. You're talking like the world is fair or something. There's not necessarily an equivalence between effort expended and value created.
  - jeffwass 12y ago
    Are there any skills you have, degrees you've completed,or knowledge you possess that you wouldn't also consider a party trick?
    - syllogism 12y ago
      Sure. I write software that automates things, specifically natural language processing.
      - jeffwass 12y ago
        So in other words - party tricks :-)
Gustomaximus 12y ago
> you realise that at least half the taxi drivers are taking the piss This is really not the case with my London cab experience. These guys are super professional. In many other cities I've found cabs taking the scenic route but never with black cabs. I feel your 'half' claim extremely inflated off probably what was very few bad experiences.

ntoshev 12y ago

It is a trivial problem. Track how anyone with a smartphone and your app on it moves around the city. Aggregate which paths they choose and which turn out to be faster / better. Then propose those paths to other users asking for routing instructions. I work on a software for routing deliveries (https://www.fleetnavi.com https://www.fleetnavi.com), and although we don't have this functionality built into the platform yet, it's the first thing to do when we get volume.

slingerofwheat 12y ago
Waze claims to do something like and it produces the most retardedly slow routes ever. I just hate it when someone uses Waze on my Lyft because I just know I'll take 10 minutes more. I don't think it's as trivial because there are lots of things to consider. Some drivers are just SLOW and it will have nothing to do with traffic. Maybe all slow/terrible drivers use your app so all the route speed information is completely based on specific patterns set by your app.
- Avitas 12y ago
  That is odd in my experience. Perhaps it has to do with my locale. I am in a major metropolis and I drive throughout the city, suburbs and adjacent cities regularly. I know the area and I have been driving for decades. I have been using Waze for about a year now. The navigation routes it selects appear to be very good. They appear to be based on relevant factors too. I can only guess what variables they include in their calculation, such as weighted capacity, current traffic speed, etc. of the relevant route elements. My experience with Waze is the opposite of yours.
- billforsternz 12y ago
  I'm amused that the phrase "uses Waze on my Lyft" is apparently self explanatory to this target audience. Clearly I am getting old and out of touch.
  - Danieru 12y ago
    It helps that the nouns are capitalized.

w1ntermute 12y ago

You're making the common mistake of disregarding disruptive innovation[0] at its early stages. Just because it starts out as only of low quality[1] doesn't mean that it will stay that way, or for long. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation 1: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Disruptivetechnology.gif http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Disruptiv...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jarek 12y ago
You're making the common mistake of regarding high quality technology as inevitable. Just because it starts out as only of low quality[0] doesn't mean that it will improve, or fast. Google Maps directions is pretty disruptive tech, right? Add 10 years of experience, lots of roads, lots of time to gather data, real-time traffic info, and when I ask it for directions from my current location in inner London to a place in central London[1] it still gives driving directions first, even though I switch to transit, walking, or cycling everytime. But hey, innovation. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clueless 1: http://i.imgur.com/c7XAuUm.png http://i.imgur.com/c7XAuUm.png
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  Setting aside your snide tone[0], the mode of transit shown by default in Google Maps has absolutely nothing to do with quality. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsehole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsehole
  - jarek 12y ago
    > the mode of transit shown by default in Google Maps has absolutely nothing to do with quality. Of course not. Technology will eat the world and improve on and replace humans in all complex cases. Like deciding what mode of transport to use in central London. Because disruption.

the_mitsuhiko 12y ago

> GPS routing is awful compared to a person who knows their way around a city. Strongly disagreed. GPS has traffic information, a human driver does not.

guelo 12y ago
A human that drives the same roads everyday most definitely does have traffic information.
- the_mitsuhiko 12y ago
  I always use GPS even on the roads I use almost daily because the traffic information my GPS provides (Google Maps) works much better than me guessing what the traffic will be. Even if I know that traffic will be slow in the morning on certain roads, I cannot predict accidents and construction work.
- baddox 12y ago
  I've been in San Francisco for 3 years, and I still check traffic information every weekend. Community events, which are fairly common, can make the difference between "traffic will be fine" and "don't dare leave your apartment." Perhaps less anecdotally, local traffic is a major staple of local news radio and TV, which probably means it's important even for locals.
- Havoc 12y ago
  Not the kind that matter though: Is there an accident & associated traffic jam today on road X or not.
  - noselasd 12y ago
    A cab driver will get that information too.
    - Havoc 12y ago
      No he won't. This guy just spent 4 YEARS memorizing maps...his honour is not going to allow him to rock a GPS and any radio'd info isn't going to include the same second-by-second route computations that the GPS does.

dkopi 12y ago

San Francisco's hills are a very localized issue. Most cities are pretty flat. London included. Of course it's just a matter of time until GPS programs integrate topographical awareness, and give you the ability to avoid steep climbs. Its also just a matter of time until cars provide visual aids for navigation, and not just the voice on a GPS device.

pimlottc 12y ago
I think you're being a bit dismissive. Hills are just one example - every city has its local issues, be they hills, rivers, different laws, traffic patterns...
- mikeash 12y ago
  Rivers are irrelevant to a GPS. Rivers only matter to a car to the extent that they determine the road layout, and GPSs know the road layout. They're also pretty good about laws, although there is still some trickiness about things like left-turn prohibitions that are only in effect at certain times. It's getting better all the time, though. Their traffic data is in my experience better than human estimation at this point, since they can route based on actual current conditions rather than extrapolations from past experience.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

wyager 12y ago

>Of course I rated that ride 5 stars, because I'm not actually a psychopath You are doing everyone except the driver a disservice. By failing to give low ratings to bad drivers, you are precluding good drivers from entering the market (because the bad ones will never get phased out, and they will saturate the market). You are also preventing consumers from making a well-informed decision, which limits the effectiveness of market mechanisms.

jdmichal 12y ago

In relation to your comment about the review: If anything less than 5 stars is unsatisfactory in Uber's eyes, why do they even have stars? If the rating is boolean anyway (5-stars or not-5-stars), then just put a single choice: Was this ride satisfactory? It shouldn't be my responsibility to know that rating a driver who was slightly late or slightly lost 4 stars is a Bad Thing. However, if you ask me whether that same ride was satisfactory or not, I'd probably say that it was. I don't necessarily want to punish people for one mistake, but I shouldn't need to rate them perfectly either.

ghaff 12y ago
I don't disagree but it seems to be the norm with P2P rating systems on the Internet. I haven't used eBay for ages--at least in its original flea market sense--either buying or selling. But there was definitely a sense back then that even giving a neutral (e.g. problem with shipping but seller resolved or something else along the lines of not ideal, but generally worked out) was giving a major black star. And people zealously guarded their perfect positive ratings--because it did make a difference. B2C seems a bit different though you still see more 5s than deserved. Personally, I have no problem giving 4s for good to very good, but not truly outstanding.
choult 12y ago
One argument for the resolution is a perception as to whether the ride is improving or not - a binary indication of this will only tell you that you've gotten to the best ride, whereas a scale will, over the course of time, show improvement or detriment (subject to the different standards of the rider). Also, one person's "satisfactory" might not be another's, so having a range to select from will provide a much richer piece of feedback capable of being weighted than a simple yes/no.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  A worthy argument, but one that falls a bit flat when the acceptable range of "passing" scores is .3 (4.7+) out of 5.
chrisseaton 12y ago

jeffwass 12y ago

Mapkin is doing this actually. They let users crowd-source their own directions, along with much better turn-by-turn descriptions too. Eg, "turn sharp right just after the firehouse, go past the field and make a left just before the baseball field". Instead of "turn right, keep left and turn left". https://mapkin.co https://mapkin.co

disordinary 12y ago

This is one of those weird cultural things that us non North Americans cannot understand, like automatically tipping. Here we don't tip unless someone is absolutely exceptional (and tips get shared amongst staff in restaurants anyway), and we don't give five stars unless you really deserve it.

notduncansmith 12y ago

How'd you get an Uber driver that's never heard of Valencia St?

objclxt 12y ago
Happens all the time, especially when there are big events on. I had a driver a few weeks ago who had come down from Sacramento to work the weekend in SF for such an event (Dreamforce, I think) and was relying solely on GPS.

jostmey 12y ago

I always enter in my final destination when requesting a pickup. Avoids any confusion. Seriously?!

schrodinger 12y ago

Side note: it drives me nuts that that article mixes up "insures" and "ensures." Shouldn't an editor at someplace like Forbes catch that?

igonvalue 12y ago

That's a very insightful article you linked. I had always wondered why Airbnb reviews were so uniformly high, even when not merited. I'd found some explanations involving Airbnb hiding negative reviews, but never quite connected the fact that I personally felt uncomfortable leaving negative reviews with the fact that other people generally didn't.