I used to read reviews on Amazon religiously even if I was buying somewhere else. That habit has kinda faded, though it's still one of the better sources of real world product knowledge.

You can say that again. I recently bought a kitchen knife with Amazon Prime that had ~100 reviews, an average of 5 stars. It cost £33, so wasn't particularly cheap. Just after I bought it the seller sent me one of those nagging emails asking for a review which I ignored. A week after they sent me another email, a copy of the first one. By the time I've already used the knife and found out it wasn't very sharp (my >5 year old knife of a different brand was still sharper), so I thought "be careful what you ask for, 'cause you may get it" and gave them an honest 3 star review. Not even 2 hours later I get an email from their rep apologizing for a "faulty item" and offering either send me another one or issue a refund and I can keep the knife in both cases. I realized what was the catch, but opted for a refund and removed my review when they asked me on the next email (obviously). So now this knife is still sold on Amazon, with 100 reviews and counting, only one 4 star review and the rest of them 5 stars.

I am not intending to emit a moral judgement, just to point out that he was sufficiently outraged to complain about it and to use such strong vocabulary as "fraud", and yet he acquiesced.

Helping (a little bit) to fix the problem wouldn't have been that much of an inconvenience, and if we customers were more like that this kind of behaviour wouldn't be possible, or at least harder.

If nothing else, someone almost without fail will leave a one-star review that has nothing to do with the item itself. "Package was damaged, one star." "UPS left it in the rain..." If Jesus asked for reviews at Mount Olive (the loaves and fishes thing), there'd be a one-star review somewhere, "fish was a little dry, and I don't like sourdough bread. Better miracles at Joe's House of Wonder, one star." (Though I guess even in reality he got one star from the Pharisees: "shouldn't be doing miracles on Sabbath; one star.") Nothing and nobody, even Jesus, gets nothing but five star reviews.

IOW, your suggestion would be as good as anything Amazon has right now.

At least ~30%+ of Amazon's products are cheap Chinese garbage resold from Albiaba under 10+ different "brands." (private label) There's are also tons of very obvious fake and counterfeit products that could be spotted with a simple human review of new listings.

The point of the fraud is to make money. He denied them that money.

Yet you feel jaded by the other reviewers. You don't owe me anything, but I would encourage you to go back and leave a negative review if the product isn't worth the price. I'm in the market for a cooking knife and would appreciate good reviews. Thanks.

Don't use it on frozen stuff.

If money is no object get a global along with the global specific ceramic roller sharpener.

Yes there are better things out there but for the cost Ikea is very good.

I don't agree with your actions, but I definitely agree with your statement. It's like judging people for paying less taxes via loopholes, yet it's perfectly legal. We focus on judging the action, rather than fixing the problem.

In this case, judging you for using a broken system, akin to tax loopholes, may not be "good" - but it's certainly not the root of the problem. Judging you would, at best, just cause one more "victim" (for lack of a better word), and completely ignore the root cause.

We as a nation need to - at the very least - focus equally on the root cause as much as those doing something we don't like. In this case, the company and/or Amazon are far more meaningful and fruitful subjects to lay blame on. Forcing one person to keep an item is not going to fix anything but ensure they have a wasted money, and have 1 bad review in a likely sea of reviews. A possibly insignificant digit. Yet, if the company is accurately called out, if Amazon are accurately called out, we may see real change.

I assume we blame you because it's easy. "Don't dodge taxes!" we scream. Yet, it's our laziness that enables tax dodgers due to ultimately ignoring and not fixing the root problems.

Wouldn't the greed of man be the true root of the problem? It just so happens that we can't actually fix it in a practical manner so the next best thing we can do is to be make it so it's difficult to take advantage of others.

I mean, I think we can. In the case of tax loopholes, they should be plugged. The corruption in politics that created, and also support the loopholes, should be prosecuted. The list goes on and on.

Sure, you are correct, the "greed of man" is to blame - but my point is systems shouldn't be set up where greedy people can freely exploit, and good people exist solely to be taken advantage of.

Systems, laws and limitations should exist to mitigate the damage done by greedy individuals as best possible. The water in the boat may be a pressing concern, but it'll just keep coming back if our main focus is to just bucket the water out of the boat. It needs to be a combined focus, or we only delay eventually being overtaken completely.

Theft is a crime, and laws exist to punish the bad actors. Yet, we still have locks on doors to mitigate who can steal from us.

We are a society built on good will. The kindness of others has given me everything I value in life. It is my responsibility to pay into it.

Sometimes we cannot afford to. That is fine. A lifetime of good deeds covers moments of necessary selfishness. If this was one such moment for you, don't feel bad about it. But if you could afford to take the time and wealth to make the world better, do.

Some people have not given up on having a moral society and believe that there is great benefit in debating the issues. Because you are not open to debate doesn't mean the debate has no value, but I appreciate your perspective.

Knives are meant to me sharpened. The cheapest knife can be sharpened to razor blade sharpness. Sometimes new knives come sharpened somewhat, but in my experience all mass-produced knives need sharpening when new, even $250 knives.

I genuinely can't comprehend the complaint. What next, buy a new car and complain it didn't come with the tank full?

Yes. You should complain if you buy a new car and it doesn't come with a full tank of gas, or needs new tires, or needs an oil change right from the dealership. Those are things you expect from a new car, and they're the reasons you buy a new car.

If I bought a used knife, I'd expect to sharpen it. If I buy a brand new knife, I expect it to be sharp right from the factory. If it's not, I could have saved money and just bought a steel rod and made my own knife out of it. A knife has one purpose: to be sharp. If it's not, it's not a knife. It's a cheap hunk of thin steel that they told you was a knife.

There is zero reason a brand new product needs immediate maintenance before it can be used.

Those are thing you expect from a new car, and they most certainly are not the reason I would buy a new car.

> If I buy a brand new knife, I expect it to be sharp right from the factory.

You might expect that, but the practical reality is that knives don't really come truly pre-sharpened, and there are many reasons for that. People don't realise that this is the case, because most people, in general, have really, really dull knives, so even a mediocre edge will seem comparatively sharp. But it isn't, it's just mediocre and once you have used a really sharp knife the difference becomes very apparent.

There isn't one way to sharpen a knife. Some people prefer an asymmetric edge, some people hate asymmetric edges. Some people prefer shallow angles, some people prefer steep angles. Some people prefer knives sharped for slashing, some people prefer knives sharpened for slicing. There is no right way to sharpen a knife, it is something extremely user-specific and personal and there cannot be a way to pre-sharpen them that would satisfy all people.

Because it is such a personal issue, I fully expect that I need to sharpen a new knife the way I want it, just as I fully expect I need to installs the apps I want and configure a new phone before I can use it.

> I could have saved money and just bought a steel rod and made my own knife out of it.

This is just hyperbole.

> There is zero reason a brand new product needs immediate maintenance before it can be used.

And yet many products are like that. For example DSLR cameras come without SD/CF cards. The user has to buy them and put them in the camera before he can use it.

However, that price point is the bottom of the bottom of the lowest end when it comes to knives and should be reviewed as such.

I mean, a BMW may be a high quality car, but most people are going to just get a base model Toyota Corolla and they're just fine with that choice. I can buy a kit car that makes me supply my own engine and tires and exhaust and electrics and it will be custom fit to my exact needs, but for the Toyota Corolla owners, they want to buy a car that already has all of those things and can be driven off the lot.

I'm not criticizing your choices, you seem very knowledgable. I'm just trying to help you understand that when you say "a knife shouldn't come sharp from the factory" and "that $45 knife is the bottom of the lowest end", it makes you seem incredibly out of touch with how most people buy knives.

If I bought a knife that wasn't sharp, I would return it to the store and get a different one.

1: http://www.kyoceraknife.com/how-to-sharpen-ceramic-knives.ht...

Not that I doubt your assessment of the knife but..

As far as kitchen knives go this is cheap, although you can still get very good and sharp knives for this price like the Tojiro DP Gyuto or Victorinox Fibrox.

Usually people don't judge a knife by it's out of box sharpness but the sharpness after sharpening, ease of sharpening, edge retention, balance, and overall craftsmanship.

Maybe knife connoisseurs don't, but normal people certainly do. I don't know the names of any knives, those names you mentioned might as well be brands of washing machines. But if I buy a knife and it's not sharp, what's the point? Why can the factory not sharpen it before selling it to me?

Using knives makes them not sharp, so the ability to sharpen is the definition of the knife not being junk. A dull knife is not a garbage knife that needs replacement, it is just a knife that needs sharpening.

I use a Lansky sharpener [1] and it is the cat's meow. Just takes a couple of minutes to put a great edge on.

[1]: http://lansky.com/index.php/products/dlx-5-stone-system/

And to be fair, at scale, given that most people are idiots and don't know astroturf reviews exist, it might never be for them.

But they are definitely in danger of losing the people who told everyone else about "that Amazon thing."

Amazon doesn't benefit financially from negative or average reviews, but they do benefit from the positive reviews, regardless of their legitimacy, as the parent poster demonstrated.

A good review system translates to trust, which enables sales.

I’m mad that they now hide book reviews that aren’t from “verified purchasers” unless you spend several clicks hunting for them.

It’s really unfortunate that there’s no independent page for book reviews with a big enough community to be remotely comprehensive.

But what's the Newegg of other stuff?

nailgunsdirect.com had the odd sized nails I needed for a project that were not stocked locally, they also have buyers guides which helped me decide a interesting new nailgun wasn't right for me. toolpartsdirect.com had the switch I needed for my drill, and a wiring diagram so I knew how to hook it up. Racketballworld.com had shoes in my size, and a lot of advice to step up my game. Those are just a few of places I've ordered from - there are many others that that I each which instead of selling everything and making me choose based on reviews only stocks quality products so I cannot go wrong.

I find when going to small sites there are lots of signs that they are not shady: they generate own reviews and advice that is more than marketing. A little poking around will tell a lot. And of course I buy with a credit card so I'm protected against loss in the worst case.

I can't say the same thing for a billion other little shops online. If you can't trust that a product on Amazon is legit, how can you trust some no-name site? I can't see how "www.Totally-Legit-Nail-Gun-Depot.info" can be any more deserving of trust than the largest online retailer in the world who has a better-than-world-class return policy.

That's like saying "I've been burned by bad doctors in the past, I'm going to have my brain surgery performed by this guy in an alley". I don't care how many patient referrals Alley Guy has, or that I have life insurance in case he kills me.

Better the devil you know, right?