[smoe]

I don't disagree with you, and I should have written better that I use them as part of an overall evaluation process.

As an example how I use them. Some time ago I was looking into buying a audio hardware unit for music production (advanced hobbyist use I guess). Superficially, from the marketing copy and some reviews I have skimmed it had everything I wanted, like Midi in/out connectors.

Then I went to the 3 stars section and one of the first comments said:

"Great device, but had to return it, because it doesn't support part X of the MIDI protocol."

Whether this is written by a human or a bot is irrelevant. What matters is, if it is true and if it affects me. In this specific case it simply didn't matter to me, so ignored the comment. In case it would have, the comment would have served as a red flag to do further investigation to see if the claim is true.

I don't do an elaborate process on everything I buy, especially not low cost every day dispensable items (just buy different brands over time until I stumble upon one I like), but the more specialized the use case and the bigger the buy in and cost of reversing decision, the more I wish I had better tools to figure out whether a product/service actually matches my use case.