[kortilla]

> You find your mechanic, doctor, lawyer, etc because they advertise.

It’s funny you say that, because I found all three literally by looking at reviews and not advertisements. Those 3 categories are perfect examples of industries where referrals are far more reliable than choosing which one had the best ad budget.

[busterarm]

A lot of reviews are just forms of advertisements.

Companies pay third parties lots of money to curate their reviews and put them in contact with the reviewer to smooth things over.

I know that because that's the business I work in now.

Companies still have a problem of getting their reviews surfaced to the top of your search. They also have a need to give people the lowest-friction way possible to leave them a positive score when it's the best time in the interaction to do so. There are many large enterprises competing in this space specifically.

The best performing adverts today are ones where you don't even realize you've been marketed to.

[futadero]

> smooth things over

You mean buying dishonest opinions? Is this supposed to wash "big" advertising innocent? Is this "helping people"?

> The best performing adverts today are ones where you don't even realize you've been marketed to.

And isn't this justifiably what everybody's scared of (and what we should oppose)?

[kortilla]

If having to reach out to real customers and fix their fuckups until they are happy enough to leave a good review, then I’m completely fine with that level of advertising. That’s just fixing your fuckups until your customers refer you, which is the best thing that you can hope for.

That has no relationship to the paid shitstorm of ads on Google.

[busterarm]

Somewhat. A lot of review systems are designed to contact you asking for a review at the exact time you're most likely to leave a good review. The companies then optimize the whole customer interaction around that experience. To actually go back and edit that review when things change isn't always easy.

The overwhelming majority of all other reviews are either the Amazon variety (so a paid endorsement, usually) or from total cranks. People don't really often leave unsolicited reviews.