This is something I've been wondering about as I've noticed increasingly high stakes items being reviewed on sites like Yelp.
For example, I'm trying to figure out where I want to move next and it's commonplace for high rise apartment buildings to be on Yelp, but now that we're talking about a $25,000 lease rather than a $40 meal, the incentives to play around with the sentiment of the reviews are significant, as well as the potential financial reward for doing so. How can we trust the neutrality of the venue in these circumstances?
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
When you understand that Hemingway quote, you will realize that all ratings services are inherently useless when it comes to the value of trust. In the case of Yelp, there really isn't any reason to trust them when their [financial] existence is maintained by the businesses that are reviewed on their site.
So when you're about to decide where to take your parents for Sunday dinner when they come to visit, don't reach for your iPhone. Go to a nice part of town and walk into a restaurant and be seated. And in the case that you don't like your parents, just take them to Denny's.
For example, I'm trying to figure out where I want to move next and it's commonplace for high rise apartment buildings to be on Yelp, but now that we're talking about a $25,000 lease rather than a $40 meal, the incentives to play around with the sentiment of the reviews are significant, as well as the potential financial reward for doing so. How can we trust the neutrality of the venue in these circumstances?