[lozenge]

This is like saying that stocking groceries is complicated because some items are perishable, some are frozen, some sell faster than others, they go to different parts of the store. Isn't it just a fundamental part of what the business is meant to do? To have reviews that actually relate to the product?

[blarghyblarg]

Yes, it is. And in a grocery store, how is a product handled when it comes in on a shipment and doesn't match the previous shipments and/or bills of lading? By a person, in every single grocery store everywhere on the planet.

Although, in a grocery store, you're less likely to see a product change from a bicycle to a scooter. You're more likely to see the cocoa content in your chocolate bar drop, and the oil change to a cheaper and less flavourful type.

I guess the comparison still works... should we have purchasers comparing products before setting them out? Under what conditions? What conditions trigger a review? In my experience, the stores just keep putting changed products out like nothing has happened, even if we notice over time that things just don't taste the same sometimes.

Turns out that... yes... it gets pretty complicated pretty fast, but many grocery stores also seem to just be ignoring this issue.

[fn-mote]

> You're more likely to see the cocoa content in your chocolate bar drop [...] > many grocery stores also seem to just be ignoring this issue.

I do not believe this is the kind of swap people are complaining about.

We're talking about a box that's labeled applesauce and is actually full of rocks. Grocery stores would kill a supplier who was doing this.

I can't imagine a "real-world" situation happening at the scale of reputation-stealing that happens on Amazon. I suppose it's just an extreme version of "Made In Your Country Tools" building up a good reputation and then quietly outsourcing the work to "Low-Quality Overseas Forge".

Is the problem is that "easy to acquire" reputation for low-cost products (get good rep by using good materials, which don't really cost that much more and eat the cost as a loss leader) is easily transferred to higher-cost products? It's not like you even need to be making bandsaws to get the good rep., then start using it to sell cheap bandsaws? The investment at the start is very low.