[throw10920]

I'd like to describe a complementary problem to yours - that it's very difficult or impossible to find out others' experiences with a product's quality, durability, and performance. That is - the complement to the problem of "it's hard to determine if some products work" is "it's hard to find other users' experiences with the product".

Amazon reviews are completely worthless, but very few other platforms have anywhere close to the same number of reviews on them. Most platforms have no verification of purchase for reviews. It's hard to determine information like "does this device require a cloud login? for which functionality? are there ads?" that isn't explicitly supplied by the manufacturer (or hidden by them). Negative reviews about product breaking quickly aren't very useful because people whose products work for a long time leave reviews at a lower rate. Google is almost useless for finding out information like this because of how SEO-gamed everything is, and the ol' "site:reddit.com" trick will only work for a while longer until these fraudsters create enough fake reviews on Reddit that it also succumbs (which is already beginning).

(rant "...and this problem will likely won't be solved anytime soon, because consumers don't care about these things. That's the reason that we're in this situation - consumer apathy. When was the last time you heard a non-tech-savvy relative say something along the lines of "Wow, this phone didn't last very long. Is there a place where I can add that data point so that other people will be more informed before they purchase one?" Users don't care about performance, privacy, or durability - they just want to watch Netflix and pay the lowest sticker price they can (regardless of annual cost of ownership). You see people self-organizing around things like video games or paintball or book clubs or whatever all the time - why won't they put even a fraction of that effort into ensuring that they buy a good car?")

[newaccount74]

> because consumers don't care about these things

I think that's not the issue. Consumers DO care about durable products, and consumers DO share their experience. Consumers talk to others about stuff they like all the time, and they also complain to others when stuff doesn't work. Consumers also spend a lot of time online researching products.

Amazon Reviews were amazing in the beginning, because so many customers shared their honest experience.

The problem is that as soon as there is a popular place where people go to read reviews, companies realise they can make a lot of money if they post fraudulent reviews (or send free samples to folks who write positive reviews). Products with good reviews make lots of money, so companies are going to put a lot of effort into getting good reviews.

On the other hand, consumers trying to share their honest experience don't have anything to gain from doing so, so they are not going to put as much effort into sharing their experience.

[Tijdreiziger]

Amazon and Coolblue reviews have been decent for me. With Amazon, the nice thing is that even if there aren't any reviews on your local Amazon, it will show reviews from other countries' Amazons with the option to translate. Combine that with professional review sites like Rtings or The Wirecutter and you can usually get a decent idea.

[thatguy0900]

Maybe products have just reached a point of being overall just cheap enough and just good enough that consumers largely don't need to care about reviews? You talk about effort to buy a good car, maybe the average car is just good enough now. I wonder what percentage of younger people have bought an actual lemon that would cause them to be cautious.

[joshspankit]

I begrudgingly feel that things being good enough is they main why. And I say begrudgingly because it means less and less are caring about excellence while more and more becomes trash.

Fuelling it is that there are people in the “I want my <$500 things to last a long time because they should last” and people in the “If there’s a QC issue or it’s not as advertised I’ll return it, and if it breaks after I use it for a while I’ll just get the then-current one which will be better anyways”, and almost no one in between.

In our current society people with funds and not time see a clear ROI for shooting for 80% success because it means not having to spend time thinking or sorting out logistics.