[ndriscoll]

The problem is that even reviews from verified purchasers get gamed in the real world, and aggregated reviews can only cover simple information because people don't have the expertise for a proper review (e.g. try to find basic information like idle power consumption for computers. Or whether some part has working or broken pcie power management). So the problem is that you need morally unassailable competent reviewers.

In theory, you'd need consumers to fund such an organization only until they had so much sway that a review from them became essentially mandatory for anyone to consider your product, at which time they could charge a fee to review a product without becoming beholden to the companies paying the fees.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

My wife used Angie's List to find some really good, honest contractors.

Many years ago, when it was still fairly new.

I'd never recommend Angie's List, these days, though. It's pure garbage.

She also used to rely on Amazon reviews.

Again, it's a dumpster fire, these days. Absolutely worthless.

[lisbbb]

The whole Internet is like this now--it's a victim of its own success. "Dead Internet Theory" is correct, I believe. There must be some kind of sociological term for what happens with popular websites that become victims of their own success, like Craigslist, EBay, Facebook, all of them follow the same predictable pattern. When they are small and unknown, they are useless. Then they hit some critical mass and a wave of new adopters show up and it's amazing--for awhile--then as the inevitable grifters and thieves arrive, the whole thing becomes a turd of astronomical proportions. Then the good people disappear, leaving only the trash behind.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Craigslist hasn't sold out ever and eBay is still useful for its original purpose if you look for genuinely used things. You're confusing them with the Etsy dumpsterfire.

[yojo]

Craigslist never sold out, but it went through a big scammer phase (and largely lost me). Looking for an apartment in SF in 2016 was a mix of property management co spam and outright fraudulent listings trying to scam you. Not sure if they ever corrected this.

I’ve since moved to Portland, OR, where Craigslist seems to get about 10% of the listings compared to FB marketplace.

I generally love Craigslist and want it to succeed, but it hasn’t been “thriving” anywhere I’ve lived in a loooooong time.

[anon7725]

Ironically, Facebook Marketplace is as or more useful than back-in-the-day Craigslist.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Most folks I know, use it, like they used to use CraigsList.

I don't use FB at all, so it doesn't matter to me.

[fhd2]

Sounds like "enshittification" to me: During the growth phase the offering is good, but as growth inevitably slows, most companies will extract value by other means: Cutting costs/quality and raising prices are the most obvious and perhaps least nefarious tactics. There's companies that don't fall too far into this, but I think most successful ones do.

[darepublic]

The problem of evil. The grifters and thieves always show up, late but inevitably, to the party. The game needs a patch to potentially fix though it's unclear what that patch would be and what could be it's unintended side effects

[davidhowlett]

I use and pay for the professional review site https://www.which.co.uk/

They are a charity funded by subscribing consumers. They don't get paid by the sellers so the incentive structure benefits the consumer. I trust what they write.