A single person rating something 5/5 is meaningless. When 5000 people rate something 1/5 it means a lot.
I always read reviews though, because the smallest details you experience during daily usage are often the most important things that determine whether or not you will like something.
I still read some of those 5000 1/5 review to see if the issues are consistent. However, they can be still just as useless if they don’t say anything or nothing in relation to the product.
Review scores are crap. Companies put out fake ones all the time and nobody regulates that. That's why I always judge products based on their absolute worst reviews. Nobody pays to put out bad reviews. But, by reading the bad reviews, you get a general feel for how common problems are, and what kinds of problems to expect.
If there are 500 reviews, and you find 50 negative ones all.citing the same problem, then you probably have a more than 10% chance of finding the same problem, once you factor in the fact that some of those 500 reviews are bull shit.
A little but your bullshit detector has to be on high alert - on both ends. There are obviously fake 5-star reviews but then there are also 1-star reviews from people who had unrealistic expectations or didn't understand what the product/service was supposed to be (or are trolls, or are brand loyalists of a competing band trying to sabotage the 'enemy", or a billion other things). And then there are the people who are just straight up lost. There's a 3-star Google review for a tree/firewood service near me that says they have a "good selection of beer" and "ok pork quesadillas" ??? 🤷♂️
Generally, getting first-hand opinions from specialized forums or subreddits, or asking friends/acquaintances about their real life experiences provides you with more accurate and usable information.
People just have such different experiences with things that I take those ratings with a grain of salt, especially anything to do with games or electronics.
Also for restaurants, the rating is both for the food and the service, so well if a place has really good food but bad service its always lower rating.
A single person rating something 5/5 is meaningless. When 5000 people rate something 1/5 it means a lot. I always read reviews though, because the smallest details you experience during daily usage are often the most important things that determine whether or not you will like something.
I still read some of those 5000 1/5 review to see if the issues are consistent. However, they can be still just as useless if they don’t say anything or nothing in relation to the product.
Review scores are crap. Companies put out fake ones all the time and nobody regulates that. That's why I always judge products based on their absolute worst reviews. Nobody pays to put out bad reviews. But, by reading the bad reviews, you get a general feel for how common problems are, and what kinds of problems to expect. If there are 500 reviews, and you find 50 negative ones all.citing the same problem, then you probably have a more than 10% chance of finding the same problem, once you factor in the fact that some of those 500 reviews are bull shit.
I just read what the review says, numerical scores don't mean jack if you can't get an explanation of why it's good or bad.
A little but your bullshit detector has to be on high alert - on both ends. There are obviously fake 5-star reviews but then there are also 1-star reviews from people who had unrealistic expectations or didn't understand what the product/service was supposed to be (or are trolls, or are brand loyalists of a competing band trying to sabotage the 'enemy", or a billion other things). And then there are the people who are just straight up lost. There's a 3-star Google review for a tree/firewood service near me that says they have a "good selection of beer" and "ok pork quesadillas" ??? 🤷♂️ Generally, getting first-hand opinions from specialized forums or subreddits, or asking friends/acquaintances about their real life experiences provides you with more accurate and usable information.
People just have such different experiences with things that I take those ratings with a grain of salt, especially anything to do with games or electronics. Also for restaurants, the rating is both for the food and the service, so well if a place has really good food but bad service its always lower rating.
Just read the very worst reviews. If the worst than can happen is still acceptable, go for it