[hotlikearobot]

To be fair, "bombing" review sites is entirely a market action. The market works through information. The most common way that information is disseminated is through prices, but that doesn't mean it is the only way. Reviews, etc, allow one to more accurately decide how to value something.

[tptacek]

You're playing games with the definition of a "review". People looking for book reviews are in virtually all cases looking for information about the content of the book. I can't win the nerd argument with you that there is no information whatsoever in the review bombs, so I won't bother; I'll just rest my case that the information is below the noise threshold, and adds so much extra noise as to make the reviews useless.

The clear intent of the reviews is to hold the publisher hostage; nobody gets to conveniently read good-faith reviews until the nerds are satisfied.

[hotlikearobot]

You can also view it as a protest of a company's practice. People protest in front of brick-and-mortar establishments all the time to make consumers aware of things which may affect their decisions. I wouldn't call that "holding stores hostage."

If a review has zero information, then I agree with you that it is absolutely worthless and should be removed. However, if a review clearly states why it is scored the way it is, then it doesn't matter if it is purely about the content of a book or not. I have seen plenty of reviews which indicated shoddy binding... would you say these are worthless as well?

[tptacek]

I am viewing it as a protest of the company's practice. It is also vandalism. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

[originalgeek]

I'm not sure whether reviews qualify as a market action; what action comes as a result of a review? It could go either way as the interpretation of the review is up to the reader of the review. It seems that ebooks sales are causing more action than the reviews. And I'll add my anecdote: my view is the negative reviewers don't understand the concept of premium cost for premium access.

[cabalamat]

> what action comes as a result of a review?

Dissemination of information, which can lead to people making different decisions. For example, a would-be purchaser may feel a price is a bit steep but would have bought the book anyway, but after reading the reviews decides not to in solidarity with the other reviewers.

Or an author might get feedback that their fans aren't happy with the pricisng structure, and may take their publisher to task because of it.

A market is essentially a distributed information processing mechanism. Seen in this light, information transfers that are not buying/selling can be seen as part of the market. For example, haggling has always been part of market behaviour.

[orangecat]

I'm not sure whether reviews qualify as a market action

Sure they do. Markets need informed buyers to function well.

[tptacek]

I agree completely, so, artificially pumping review sites full of reviews by people who haven't actually read the book as a protest movement doesn't seem like a market-improving action to me.

[orangecat]

First, the reviews inform people that the books are available cheaper in other formats, which they might not have known. Second, if the reviews do cause the publisher to lower the price, that will presumably result in more sales, and there will be more consumer surplus gained than producer surplus lost. Boom, market improvement.

[tptacek]

When supplier are coerced into changing their prices by force, that isn't the market at work.

You don't like the word "coercion" or "force" because you think stuffing review sites with non-good-faith-reviews it harmless, even though it contravenes the expectation that a reviewer represents a single entity who has actually attempted to consume the book. But the same logic was used during the Wikileaks Visa DDoS flood. You can choose to believe that DDoS attacks are legitimate, too. But you cannot with a straight face say that those attacks are the market at work.

[orangecat]

stuffing review sites with non-good-faith-reviews it harmless, even though it contravenes the expectation that a reviewer represents a single entity who has actually attempted to consume the book

I don't agree the the reviews are not "in good faith". It is wrong to write a review of a $100 Monster cable pointing out that no matter how well it works, it's a ripoff when a $10 cable is functionally identical? This is the same idea: the reviewers are expressing their opinion about whether the product is worth the asking price. Their criteria for evaluation is different from yours; that doesn't make it vandalism or coercion or a DDOS.