Amazon still hasn’t fixed its problem with bait-and-switch reviews
There's a somewhat pervasive idea that advertising and brand recognition are coercive tools that will ultimately die out, replaced by better objective information about products. I'm kind of partial to this idea myself.<p>But increasingly we seem a long way from achieving this. Amazon reviews have become such garbage, I've fallen back to pretty much relying on name brands as my placeholder for product quality.<p>There's still a lot to be said for established brands. Brands can afford widespread advertising because they have thriving businesses that generate lots of cash. Brands can get stocked in major retailers because you need decent products to make it through Walmart's buying process.<p>These are signals that are harder to fake, and they're kind of the best we've got right now.