@manton I swear to god I came across an early Web2 academic study attempting to figure out if indexed customer-sourced reviews of businesses actually democratized editorial analysis of markets, and/or at least was lowering the chances of a new entrant to a given market being straight up defrauded in the open. (Forgive me, we are really stretching my kindergarten-level business vocabulary... and memory.)

Anyway, I've never been able to find it again, so this could be straight up hallucination, but...

The results suggested that none of the original hypotheses on ways our collective ability to publish product reviews could benefit the customer seemed to have any tangible track. (I guess I was betting very heavily at the time on my neoliberal-ish understanding that markets could generally drive anything forward as a college-age American who believed I should and could find success in Automotive media as a journalist in the interest of The Buying Public.)

Anyway, sorry...

It'd be one thing if random feedback solicitation the way it is now was benefitting any of the parties involved in these day-to-day experiences in coherent ways, but ... no.

Please, evil adtech motherfuckers, would you at least fix your shit enough to reliably function for yourselves...

(Sorry Manton, I would be ranting at them but - unlike yours - their comment systems don't work lmao.)