[ej12n]

>So if you're building something right now, maybe stop and ask yourself "ok, so how does this all look if we end up taking over the world 25 years from now, and this thing is a gatekeeper between a lot of people and a lot of revenue?"

This is a fair concern, but I'd say that if you're building something right now, I think is better to worry more about getting your startup in a position to take over the world first and then deal with those concerns. Worrying about these big problems when you're small I would say is a bit of premature optimization.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

If we had known in 94 that customer reviews would eventually get gamed in this way, should we ever have added the feature? Was 15 or 20 (?) years of a "working" review system enough to make it worthwhile, and now it needs revisiting, or should we just have said "no" right at the start?

[Nasrudith]

No review system would be even worse as you cannot even tell if people are getting crap. There is already ceasesless whining about false positives being an abuse of power and in the same breath complaining about not doing enough.

The "do nothing ever without the foresight of a precog or else you are EVIL!" school of ethics never made any sense. It is just an excuse to be outraged and pin all of the world's problems on the tall poppy.