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[bronk]

......and I must say, I'm impressed.

These reviews have completely taken over Amazon. Stop lying you fuck. You are not impressed with a cheap phone case, I don't believe you. I wish someone would start with "I received this product to conduct a completely honest and unbiased review." Immediately followed by "This product is pure shit." So you got the item for free and you bash it? That's a review I can trust.

Spoiler

i can't trust amazon stars anymore :'(

 

[Frodo]

Could you EVER trust Amazon stars, tho?

 

[bronk]

Could you EVER trust Amazon stars, tho?

I always used to. Maybe they were lies all along and I didnt know better. I don't know why but I've been noticing the fake reviews alot lately.

 

[KillGore]

I remember reading somewhere that the best reviews you can read are the 3 star reviews. Apparently they're the least biased.

 

[MilkBeard]

Could you EVER trust Amazon stars, tho?

The time when you can is when a bunch of people are telling you not to get something because it's shit. Or they tell you factual information like "this shirt runs two sizes small". Otherwise, I wouldn't trust crazy praising.

 

[- J - D -]

Those reviews of which the item was provided gratis or at discount come from reviewers who belong to Amazon's Vine program, which I am to understand isn't easy to get in due to the rather thorough vetting process involved.

Regardless, I am wary of those reviews and wish there was an option to hide them. I mean, I can never be too sure...and I need to be when I'm shopping for banana slicers and whatnot.

 

[Gastone]

I don´t trust user reviews in general.

 

[i_am_ben]

"I received this product to conduct a completely honest and unbiased review and..... I must say I love Goldman Sachs"

-Hillary Clinton

 

[kaizoku]

Surely it's in amazons interest to simply increase volume of reputable reviews on the site vs increasing good reviews. I doubt the scheme itself is dodgy.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

"I received this product to conduct a completely honest and unbiased review and..... I must say I love Goldman Sachs"

-Hillary Clinton

 

[RibMan]

I remember reading somewhere that the best reviews you can read are the 3 star reviews. Apparently they're the least biased.

The best reviews are the most informed reviews (aka the most specific reviews). These are typically the longest reviews. Unfortunately, most people don't like reading long anything, so the really in-depth stuff is hard to come by.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Could you EVER trust Amazon stars, tho?

I don't trust products with polarized reviews. Even if it's 4.5 stars overall, if it's 100 5-star and 20 1-star reviews, I ain't buying that shit. Most likely, it's a product that either has an unacceptable failure rate or works fine for a few weeks then craps out.

 

[Raistlin]

"I received this product to conduct a completely honest and unbiased review and..... I must say I love Goldman Sachs"

-Hillary Clinton

I legit snorted

 

[storafötter]

I remember reading somewhere that the best reviews you can read are the 3 star reviews. Apparently they're the least biased.

I always go for them and then compare the negatives with the positives of those 5 star brazing reviews. Usually you can connect some dots but yeah user reviews are useless most of the time.

 

[Count Dookkake]

So like video game reviews.

 

[waxer]

Reading them and ignoring the stars help. Especially when the one stars are store related rather than product. I quite often use amazon for reviews when I can't find any other feedback even if not buying from them.

 

[cameron]

There are sites like fakespot that will analyze reviews for fakes. It has become pretty bad.

A few years ago it was mostly "Amazon Vine" shills; the useless wall text positive review with a green header indicating it was a "Amazon Vine Program" customer.

Now there's an army of shills outside of Vine. And not all of them state that they had received the product to do the review. They're in every department, but mobile electronics, like bluetooth gear, is plagued with them. Vermin.

 

[Jedi2016]

They're generally pretty easy to spot. Most of the fake reviews I've read sound like they're written by someone in marketing. And people in marketing still haven't caught on to the fact that normal people don't talk that way about products.

 

[Silvard]

They aren't fake per se. They're from people who use websites explicitly created to help manufacturers/merchants get more exposure on their products by offering them at a discount in exchange of reviews. Users aren't obligated to post positive reviews, let alone perfect ones, but it's not hard to see the potential conflict of interest.

That said, I personally rarely pay attention to positive reviews unless they are extremely detailed or very technical. I mostly watch out for negative reviews that could highlight potential red flags or false advertisement involving the product I'm checking out. Usually by the time I get to a product I've done enough research to know exactly why I want it.

 

[komplanen]

User reviews (when not fake) are a good general indicator for ease of use and durability but other than I find them mostly worthless. For certain products a regular person goes through fewer products in their lifetime than a professional reviewer in one review. I recently read a consumer reports type review of ~20 blenders. That's at least twice as many as I will ever have experience of using in my life time.

To a regular Joe everything can so easily be impressive or absolute shit when the pool of experience is so small.