[binklee]

That's interesting though: what's the alternative?

Each vertical has different dimensions that matters to people, and some could be objectively measured, without reviewers.

In my case, I'm building a community for any type of classes around you (e.g. dancing, yoga, acting classes, French, etc.) at https://classalog.org and when I asked users 'how do you choose a class' almost no one tell me "I want to see reviews" as their first answers. Pictures, and knowing the experience of the instructor is more important. I'm not certain reviews with its downsides would do more good than bad, and I'm really hesitant to implement that feature at the moment.