[anderskev]

One thing I've noticed recently is that the number of reviews that are for a completely different product seem to be skyrocketing. This was probably the final straw for me when it came to trusting Amazon reviews, and now I usually look to YouTube to get info. Granted, most of the YouTube reviews are sponsored but it seems like the reviewers are almost always up front about this and it helps to see someone physically using the product.

Given that the review problem seems to be growing worse, I wonder what the priority of fixing this is internally at Amazon. Even if I turn to another source for reviews I'll still probably purchase from Amazon if the price is lower, so I wonder what effect this actually has on their bottom line?

It seems like the only real solution is to make it so time consuming to write a review that the economics of paying someone to do so no longer make sense. I'm not entirely sure how this could be done. Maybe have a longer length requirement? Force a reviewer to upload photos? Someone once commented here that making the reviews ephemeral or decay in importance over time could be a solution, which I thought was an interesting idea.