I use Fakespot, and I wonder about its accuracy. Seeing a 5-star product given a `D` rating is shocking. If Fakespot is reasonably accurate, then Amazon is inexcusably bad at removing fake reviews. Amazon has orders of magnitude more developer talent and user information than Fakespot to tackle accurate ratings. But I suppose that's the reality of differing incentives...

I also question them. It seems a lot easier to accuse Amazon ratings of being poor especially if it feeds into an already existing confirmation bias against Amazon. For all we know Fakespot could just be making all of it up right? How are Fakespots ratings verified? Do I need a Fakespot for Fakespot too? Maybe rating systemes like these are fundamentally flawed.

Just switch to a reliable vendor like Costco or Target and stop buying from Amazon.

Costco and Targets selection is basically nothing compared to Amazon though. Can I buy an eGPU enclosure, a GPU, and some paper plates from Target or Costco? Then if I have a problem or decide I don’t want them after opening how hard will the return be with Target and Costco?

So you believe that those companies somehow avoid review manipulation? I sure don't.

The minimum quality of the items Target and Costco tends to be better. Also, neither allows arbitrary third party items onto their platform. Their buyers choose the items they sell.

In essence, I don't care that much about the reviews. There are fewer of them, and they usually talk more about factual aspects of the item. There are very few "1 star, this is total garbage" type reviews because the retailer has filtered much more of the crap out.

> Also, neither allows arbitrary third party items onto their platform. Their buyers choose the items they sell.

What’s this then?

https://www.target.com/c/target-plus/-/N-0mjxk

I do think that Amazon is inexcusably bad at removing fake reviews.

However, I think there are some instances where Amazon probably rearranged large numbers of reviews because they found out the reviews were for a different item. It's likely that Fakespot can't tell the difference between mass censorship and legitimate removal. So you do have to take the results with a grain of salt and read recent reviews.

Amazon does have the disadvantage of being more worth circumventing. I.e. if amazon cracks down on some method of cheating the system, to a large extent the cheaters are going to find some other method of cheating.

Whereas since Fakespot etc are less popular, there's less reason to evade their detection algorithms.

That said, yeah, it sure seems like amazon's doing an awful job for consumers in this area.

It's likely Amazon. Of course, there are instances where (e.g. mason jars) where fakes may be acceptable as they're commodity products.

It's tiring using Fakespot just to find dozens of D and Fs. For the most part, I use other retailers or just don't buy the item (surprisingly it's a zen option to not buy stuff you don't pressingly need).

They really aren't acceptable, though; they are often not really suitable for pressure canning, and the failure and breakage rate is higher.

https://reviewmeta.com/ is another site which does the same sort of thing.

That’s a pretty cool app. I love their interface, using the share button to expose the analysis.