Who has a better idea whether a lawyer or a surgeon is actually good at their job - their clients or their peers?

It is much easier to collude with peers than with clients, so I'm more likely to trust reviews from clients than peers.

Much easier to lie to customers though.

When you book a hotel do you base your decision on reviews from other customers or other hotel owners?

With professionals it's their peers. Unfortunately that doesn't really help unless you're in the "club". In any community the other doctors all know who are the best surgeons and who are the butchers. But they won't publicly badmouth a peer or even privately tell you unless they really trust you.

Spectrum is the ‘most popular’ internet with the most customers in my area.

Not because they are liked but because they are the only option outside of maybe starlink.

genuinely curious what truth-distilling insight you think the average customer has that somehow can’t be manipulated artificially.

people get duped by deceptive marketing every day, man.

On the other hand, we have seen how perverse incentive amongst experts work too. Academia is rife with fraud (e.g. publishing 500 paper a year), because certain incentives make it possible. I agree expert are important and should be judged by peers, but incentives around budget allocation and prestige should not be attached to performance, especially in science. However I understand it's a complex topic so I probably miss a lot of information, just my 2 c.

skin in the game. They paid for the product, and if the company's still in business, didn't sue it or convince everyone else not to. A good review costs a restaurant critic nothing.

I'm surprised at how many people took the bait to treat this as an either/or proposition. One criteria of evaluation is never sufficient to make a good decision - why not ask both? A smart consumer reads the product label and the user reviews.